


Sweet Home

by copperbadge



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Backstory, Depression, F/M, Lost Years, M/M, Recovery, Travels, lycanthropy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-09-21
Updated: 2004-09-21
Packaged: 2017-12-27 05:27:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 67,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/974964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/copperbadge/pseuds/copperbadge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being a chronicle of the twelve missing years between the deaths of the Potters and Remus Lupin's return to Hogwarts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Frequent mentions of depression; some gore; some bullying; brief mention of suicide.
> 
> This was written prior to Half-Blood Prince, and except for the last chapter takes place prior to the events of The Philosopher's Stone.

America was not what Remus Lupin had expected. 

In nineteen-eighty-two, transatlantic telecom was still a big deal, and that was Muggle technology; transatlantic Apparation or Floo was downright dangerous. He took an airplane instead, tricking and forging (thank you Sirius, for this at least) his way through the airport, onto the plane, past customs, and out into the big wide world.

He touched down at Logan in Boston, which seemed nice; it reminded him of England, sort of, with cobbled streets and old brick houses. But that was what it was -- a New England. That was why he'd left to begin with. England was not where he wanted to be. 

He sent a postcard to his father, one to Dumbledore, and one to Alastor Moody, who'd been his mentor and grandfathered him into the Order; then he moved inland, away from water. He'd spent his whole life on an island and America was much bigger than he'd imagined.

Reading a map was hard. A day's train ride on an English map was three days' worth or more on an American one. Words were said differently, spelled differently. Schedules ran differently, and his quiet, polite bewilderment went ignored by the masses. This, at least, he was used to, but without James or Sirius to forge onwards, or Peter to bend a head over the bus schedule and help him puzzle it out, he was utterly at a loss. 

He bought an apple at a stand in some small town in western Massachusetts where the bus put him down. He sat, and considered. 

He had realised, somewhat, that it didn't matter if he was at a loss; it wasn't as though he was going anywhere in particular, or had to be there at any specific time. His Muggle cash was going to run out soon, and he only had two Galleons past that. He could go north to Salem, but Moody'd warned him off it; aside from the Institute it was all a bunch of Muggle nut jobs. West was the vast majority of America, which in his mind was one long stretch of prairie with cowboys riding through it. South was the Mississippi, which conjured images of Mardi-Gras masks and riverboats. North was Canada, full of moose. Meese? 

He got on the next bus and let it take him somewhere for two days, and got off in what might have legitimately been considered the Heartland. 

This was not even a new England, but an old one; this was the world of his childhood with an American accent tacked on, rural farmers living and dying on their land. Good folk; salt of the earth. Wide fields and dusty little towns, agricultural schools. He still hadn't seen a cowboy, but there was world enough and time for that. It was a good line to try on women, too. So why did you come to America? Well, I had this intense desire to see a ten gallon hat...

He swapped labor for a meal and a few dollars at a time, surprising his temporary employers with the strength in his still-boyish body. He worked for magical folk too, when he came across them, getting rid of pests or charming repairs around houses. 

He always moved on before the full moon, locking himself in abandoned gas-station restrooms, outhouses, shackling himself with rusty chain if no other opportunity presented itself.

Twice, when he felt he was safely deep enough in the wilderness, he ran wild. Once he woke with buckshot in his thigh, and contributed a little to local legend when he had it seen-to by a Muggle Healer. _There's something not right about that drifter who came through...._

He got bored with jobbing farm-work and went south to Texas. He finally saw a cowboy, and was less than impressed. He moved on again quickly, once he'd made enough cash for the train to Louisiana, which was the state the coin had landed on when he'd flipped it onto a train schedule. 

People took a liking to him in America, deferred to him sometimes and were always polite. Women thought his accent was lovely, even if they sometimes thought it was Australian. He enjoyed being liked, being pursued for the first time in his life, without handsome Sirius and popular James overshadowing him. He almost convinced himself he didn't miss them. 

Of course in the south the women spoke with a drawl that was as enchanting to him as his accent was to them, and he was tempted to stay in Louisiana. But he met a woman who looked like Lily and asked him to bite her when they had sex, and that was the end of that. He got as far as the Alabama state line before he stopped for breath. 

He was looking for work in Montgomery, spending his last few dollars (still somewhat bemused by the monochrome qualities of American money, all green and cream) on a cup of coffee and a sandwich, when the owl found him. It screeched in, dropped a letter -- nearly in his coffee -- and screeched out again.

The other four people in the cafe stared. He regarded the letter for a moment, then reached over as if this was a common occurrence in Muggle America and picked up the letter, opening it. Parchment; wax seal from Hogwarts; Dumbledore's hand.

_Remus,_

_I'm told by your father that your last postcard was from Montgomery, and I hope this letter finds you still there; there's been an opening at an American magical boys' school in the area --_

Three days later he was suddenly Professor Remus Lupin, of the Montgomery Academy For Young Wizards. He even had a uniform. Small children saluted him. It was very peculiar.

The Academy was a boarding school on the outskirts of town, housed in an old plantation. It was run with military precision, and he didn't much care for some of the discipline, but it was a regular job and he was respected. Some of the other professors even had him to dinner, which was nice. 

He taught Charms, not his best subject, but he was competent enough. He discovered he was a pretty good teacher. Once he'd put some bolts and silencing spells on the closet in his bedroom, he had a place to go on the full moons. The Headmaster -- Principal -- covered his classes and told the students he was doing monthly orienteering runs with a local military unit. 

He liked his uniform: grey wool and felt, with high collars and colourful stripes. He liked the way it made him seem bigger, the way it commanded respect. He taught a workshop in Muggle Arms -- he'd learned to handle a rifle when he was a child -- and took lessons in how to fence from the other European import, a Frenchman named Lareaux who taught Ancient Magical History. 

The children seemed to like him as well as he liked them. 

He was happy there. For the first time in a long time. For the first time in ever, he sometimes thought. 

And then again...

***

He'd come to the Academy in September. The first Hallowe'en he was there, he locked himself in his rooms, and didn't answer the knocks or the pebbles thrown at his window. The upperclassmen were "vetting" the younger boys, and Lareaux and some of the other professors were on hand to make sure nobody went too far; after Hallowe'en the first-years were real students, not just pleb kiddies, and the fifth-years were Men, and the seventh-years attained some kind of elite status that he didn't inquire too closely about. Remus didn't pretend to understand it and didn't want any part of it, or anything else to do with Hallowe'en. He was supposed to be vetted too, as a new professor -- nothing like what they were doing to the children, merely a blindfolded march through the plantation grounds to the river, a dunking, and some wine afterwards with the other teachers. 

But he didn't answer their catcalls and hoots, and after a while they assumed he must have gone out for the night. 

When he was at Hogwarts he'd been granted special access to some parts of the library that were normally restricted, and he'd read about the magics that they didn't teach because there was no point to them anymore. Archaic spells like outdated workman's tools, exorcisms for magical creatures long since extinct, magic that had stopped working. Rituals for the dead. 

_To lay at peace_ , the books had said. He wasn't sure if they meant the spirits of the deceased or the souls of those who were left behind. He lit a candle each for James and Lily and Peter, and fell asleep with them still burning behind the tightly shuttered windows. 

Nothing changed. Just as nothing had changed when he hadn't done a spell, the two years he'd already been wandering.

Harry was four years old. What a peculiar thought. 

They said people went insane, in Azkaban, after a while. He wondered if Sirius had. 

And then the next morning he put on his scarlet shirt and grey wool coat, his black breeches and belt and his spit-shined boots, and he went out into the sunny world of mid-autumn Alabama, and supervised morning drill. There was no end of structure at the school, and it was pleasant and easy to lose oneself in it. 

The summer after his first year at the Academy, he chose to stay when the children left and help keep the grounds, repairing fences along the borders of the campus. He took a few jobs in the northern part of the state, ran into his first Dementor. He spent three days recovering and another two weeks learning how to cast a Patronus, from a pert young witch who made it more than worthwhile to stay the two weeks. 

Nasty things, Dementors.

This year, knowing what would happen on Hallowe'en, he didn't want to wander, go out or stay in; he didn't want to say prayers for the dead or think about Harry and Sirius. He didn't know what he wanted. He felt uneasy in his skin, in a way he never felt even before the full moon. He was short with his students. When Ryan, the Dark Arts professor, asked if he would help supervise this year's Rites, he snarled a negative and walked on quickly, cheeks already burning with shame at his own behaviour. 

He was strapping the fencing pads over his shoulders, tossing equipment down onto the bench in the changing room, when Lareaux walked in, carrying a small case. He stopped in the doorway, watching, until Remus finished with the buckles and turned to him.

Gabriel Lareaux was a lanky man, an intelligent sort who'd been teaching at the Academy for eight years. He said he'd come to Montgomery on a holiday for his health after some sort of vicious athletic accident that he rarely mentioned; like Remus, he'd taken to the structure and honour code of the school, and stayed on. His accent was thick but his English was impeccable, and the boys liked him because, in addition to ancient history, he taught Social Graces. Social Graces was what allowed several years' worth of awkward sixteen-year-olds to bravely woo the girls from the Finishing School down the road with their dancing abilities and table manners at the annual Academy Ball. Somehow, Gabriel Lareaux made dancing seem manly. 

He also made athletics seem intellectual, and for the first time in his life Remus enjoyed it. He'd never been much for Quidditch. His lycanthropy had kept him fit and strong (and exhausted and sore) without much in the way of work, but now he enjoyed their weekly evening fencing matches. 

He was looking forward to attempting to beat the crap out of someone.

"Are you going to dress?" he asked, tossing Lareaux a helmet. "Or just stand there ogling me all day?" 

Lareaux smiled and shook his head. "Non, Lupin," he said, giving it his peculiar Loupahn inflection. He had tried Reymie a grand total of once before a frozen silence had informed him that nicknames were Not Done when it came to Remus Lupin. Still, he was French, and he defiantly twisted the syllables of the name until they fit his mouth. "No epee for you today."

Remus paused, then ripped the padding off his shoulder, throwing it down on the bench.

"Fine," he growled. "I'll go run the fences."

"Non," Lareaux continued. "We will still have a lesson today. No weapons, no padding."

Remus slammed the pads into his locker and shut the door violently. "I'm not going to study bloody tactics, Lareaux. If you're not planning on a real lesson today I'd just as soon not bother."

Lareaux cocked his head. "Such rage in one so young."

"I'm not -- I'm not young," Remus said, gathering himself into something approaching composure. He could afford to be rude to Ryan; Lareaux was a better friend, and didn't deserve to be shouted at.

"Forgive. I did not mean it that way," Lareaux said. "You are angry. Oui. Come with me."

Remus reached for his uniform coat, pulling it on over his scarlet dress shirt as they walked down the corridor of the gymnasium (once a horse barn; the plantation had kept racing stables) and out onto the grounds. From the grass field and the dirt track, they could see the school building, once the big house, and the dormitories. Remus had been horrified to learn that the dormitories were once slave houses, but the students didn't seem to care. He'd almost grown used to the idea. 

Lareaux opened the case he was carrying as they walked, and held it out to Remus. On a small velvet pad lay a vicious looking little tool, glinting in the red sunset -- a short, razor-sharp spike with six little legs, at angles from the base and curled, as though they were meant to fit over something. He tucked a finger under one, and with a little difficulty, bent it outwards a few degrees. 

"What is it?" Remus asked sulkily.

"Un col-de-mort," Lareaux replied. "A death-collar. But more important, it is an allegory."

Remus glanced up at him, laying the horrible little thing back in its case. Lareaux snapped the case shut and slipped it into his back pocket. 

"It is designed to fit over the end of an epee," Lareaux continued. "The legs spring around the end, oui?"

"Oui," Remus replied. He spoke only a little French, very poorly and mostly having to do with fencing, but Lareaux always seemed to expect it and he found himself answering without thinking.

"The blade covers the tip. What was once a game for gentlemen becomes a murderous farce," Lareaux said. "This is a thing which turns an innocent thing into something wicked. That is its sole purpose. A perversion."

Remus was silent. Lareaux glanced sidelong at him as they passed the old plantation building, turning onto the main road that led to the front gates. 

"Anger is like the col-de-mort," Lareaux said. "It turns my lesson to you into your release. Non, non. No good. I am not here to be your kicking bag."

"Punching bag," Remus said, under his breath. Coming from another, the reproach would have made him die of shame. From Lareaux, it merely made the tense knot between his shoulders unravel, and made him kick the stones on the road like any errant sixth-year. 

"So, today, no fencing. For us, a new game," Lareaux said. "We will eat; speak; drink; we have no duties this evening."

"You're not going with Ryan?" Remus asked, surprised. "But tonight's -- "

"Others will mind the boys tonight," Lareaux said dismissively. "I am not luring you away to your own initiation," he said hastily, when Remus hesitated at the gates. "You fled last year; no, it was not cowardice, that we know, you are not a cowardly man. You are an angry man; one can smell the rage inside you. Do you know your eyes are betraying you?"

Remus felt his heart tighten, his guts clench.

"You live only partways in this world, Loupahn," Lareaux said, turning to him. "You dream the world and care as much for it as for a dream. And Hallowe'en makes you angry, makes you hide deeper."

"That's not true."

"It is true." Lareaux smiled. "In three hours I will ask you why."

"I won't answer you -- "

"You will. Come." Lareaux put a hand on his shoulder. "Apparate. Follow me."

He vanished in a crack, and Remus followed; they emerged in a dark alley in downtown Montgomery, a common Apparation-point for the wizards and witches local to the area. Lareaux led him silently out into the main street and through a pair of heavy doors, into a dim, elegant-looking restaurant. 

"Hallowe'en should be a day of celebration in America," Lareaux said. "Even for expatriates from the old country."

Remus shrugged, and watched a waiter set down two glasses of water in front of them. Lareaux lit a cigarette.

"Tell me," he said, when he'd exhaled, "Have you ever actually tried the famous Southern Comfort?"

***

"Quatre." 

"Parry cinq!"

"Advance."

"Parry cinq, riposte quatre!"

"Ah! T'aurais gagné. If you could actually have done it."

Remus, chin propped on one hand, watched Lareaux lift the shot of Southern Comfort and down it, smoothly. He'd lost track of who would actually have won, if they were truly fencing instead of just firing off terms at each other; Lareaux was using toothpicks to keep score of who'd done how many shots. The Frenchman plucked one out of the ashtray and tossed it in the shot glass next to his elbow. 

"We are my huit to your neuf," he said, pouring a new shot for himself. 

"Mmh?"

"Eight," Lareaux said, "to nine. It is time for your exam."

"Exam?" Remus asked, curious. He had eaten a rather large, leisurely dinner and had been drinking more or less steadily since; he'd forgotten precisely why he was angry with Lareaux -- or with the world, for that matter. He was warm to his fingertips. 

"Oui. I will say a word, you must answer. Translate."

Remus held up a finger and shook his head.

"You can barely speak English," he said. "What makes you think I can speak French right now?"

"Mmm. A hit. Perhaps..." Lareaux checked his watch, and signaled to a waiter to bring them the check. "We will see how you walk, instead."

Remus stood unsteadily and waited while Lareaux put down enough Muggle cash to pay the bill. They walked slowly and carefully out into the street again, back around and down into the alley.

"Can you Apparate?" Lareaux asked. Remus paused to think, forgot what he was supposed to be thinking about, and grinned at his friend. Lareaux shoved him lightly, and he stumbled back against the wall.

"No tolerance," the Frenchman said with a sigh. Remus pushed away, about to protest, when Lareaux wrapped his arms around him from behind, and there was the startlingly loud crack of Apparation. 

They reappeared just outside the Academy gates. Lareaux held onto him a second longer than necessary before letting him go. Remus staggered forward, catching himself on the gatepost and laughing. Lareaux grinned back.

"Come, we have much to discuss yet," Lareux said, taking his elbow and lifting him upright. They ambled through the dark grounds, up into the plantation house and inside. Like Diagon Alley, it was much larger inside than out; Lareaux guided him up the grand staircase and down the long halls, only pausing when they were finally in the teachers' wing. Remus fumbled for his key, unlocking the door and holding it for Lareaux, who bowed and almost toppled over. 

Safely inside, Remus dropped onto his bed and pulled his boots and socks off. Lareaux unbuttoned his coat and hung it on the hook on the wall that Remus had installed for guests, so that they wouldn't have to go into the closet -- the scoremarks on the wood would cause questions. 

"Have a seat," he said, gesturing vaguely at the chair. His rooms were simple, even more so than most of the stark professors' quarters; a bed and quilt, desk and chair, mirror, bureau and trouser-press, a crowded bookshelf, a few smaller shelves with boot-brushes and the like on them. He took off his own coat and hung it up likewise. "Kick off your boots if you like. I'm going to wash," he added, stumbling into the small washroom off the main room and splashing some cold water on his face and hands. 

When he returned Lareaux was also barefoot, boots neatly placed by the door, examining his bookshelf.

"I have finally discovered your addiction," he announced. "Your vice."

"More expensive than drinking," Remus answered, throwing himself into his chair. "But then you can't drink the same bottle twice."

"You've drunk these many times," Lareaux observed, taking down a tattered copy of Julius Caesar. 

"Most are second-hand. I'm not so rich as all that," Remus answered. "When I left England, I..."

He stopped, the memory slowly seeping back through his brain, the reason he had been angry, had wanted to flee his own body.

"You miss England?" Lareaux asked kindly.

"Sometimes," Remus said, with a false smile. "But I'm an Academy boy now."

"Oui, vive l'Academie," Lareaux agreed. He straightened, tugged his shirt neat, and pointed at Remus, singing a line in a deep voice. "Alabama's sons are we..."

Remus grinned and joined in on the second line. "Honour strength and dignity -- "

"And our watchwords now and ever -- "

"Shall be taught in old Dixie -- "

Lareaux had a good strong baritone and Remus wasn't a bad low tenor; anyone crossing the grounds could have heard them singing the school anthem, perhaps less perfectly than men who hadn't downed an entire fifth of Southern Comfort between them, but with no less passion for all of that. 

_If we're called on we can stand and_   
_If we're asked we can provide_   
_For there are no fiercer Wizards_   
_Than the southland's joy and pride_

_From the gulfs up to the border_   
_Academy we are thine_   
_And we'll whip any Yankee magic_   
_You just name the place and time_

_If we're called on we can stand and_   
_We will die or we'll live free_   
_For there are no fiercer Wizards_   
_Than Montgomery Academy..._

Lareaux laughed again and collapsed across Remus' bed as Remus ended the line off-key. The anthem suddenly seemed very amusing, especially given that it was ten-year-olds who were expected to sing it. 

"God, what an awful song," Remus said, shaking his head.

"Beauxbatons' was worse," Lareaux replied, propping himself on his elbows. "It is a law, I think. A school song should embarrass one as much as possible in front of one's competitors."

"Oh, I don't know, I rather liked Hogwarts' -- " Remus began, but cut off abruptly. A memory surfaced, unwelcome and unasked for, of Sirius singing lewd addendums to the Hogwarts school song.

Lareaux saw his hesitation, and the smile faded from his lips. 

"Loupahn," he said quietly. "Tell me why you hate this day so very much."

"I don't -- "

"Tell me why you are only half in the world we live in," Lareaux persisted. "Why you wish to lose yourself. Why you have."

Remus ran a hand over his face, rubbing his eyes. "Why?"

"Because I wish to know."

"I don't owe you an explanation."

"I paid for dinner."

Remus looked up at him, stunned, and saw that Lareaux was grinning, sitting up on the bed. 

"A joke, Remus," Lareaux said gently. "Tell me. Please."

Remus leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, bowing his head. 

"Voldemort," he said. Lareaux winced. "Nineteen-eighty-one."

"Oui, l'enfant qui a survécu."

"Oui," Remus said, somewhat sadly. "I knew the Potters."

Lareaux looked interested now. "Well?"

"Quite well. They were good friends."

He was silent for a while, until there was a sudden intake of breath from Lareaux.

"You," he said. "Loupahn. You are that Loupahn. The newspapers -- the photograph."

Remus nodded, staring at the floor. He had arrived at the wreckage of the Potter house after Hagrid and Sirius had gone. The Prophet's photographer had taken a picture of the barren pile of lumber and plaster -- and Remus standing to one side, staring at it in utter shock in the early-morning light. The photograph had gone around the world; some places had cropped him out, but more had left him in. His face wasn't visible behind windblown hair, and the stir of the wind against his robes were the only movement in the photograph. He remembered a piece of him freezing, remembered standing there for minutes on end, uncertain what to do.

A hand touched his shoulder. "You were friends with the traitor -- Black?"

"Yes."

Another pause.

"I fled France for fear of les mangeurs de mort," Lareaux said. "The Death's Eaters. They were blackmailing me. I was told if I did not join..."

"You're not alone there," Remus said bitterly. There was a rustling, and he lifted his head to see Lareaux standing, rolling up his sleeves. On the inside of either wrist were vicious burn scars, running up his arms and disappearing under his shirt. 

"Your 'accident'," Remus said.

"A souvenir from my would-be blackmailers." Lareaux smiled. "When the boys play Scars, I always win."

"Scars?"

"Did you never play Scars? You show a scar, and tell a story."

Remus gave a low, pained chuckle and stood. He undid his cuffs, setting the links carefully on his desk, and began unbuttoning the light linen dress shirt with one hand, untucking it from its neat folds with the other. In one swift movement, he opened it and dropped it off his shoulders, letting it fall to the floor. 

"Oh -- putain," Lareaux gasped, as the light from the candles and lamps threw shadows across the scars around his ribcage, over his shoulders and down his arms. "Nom de Dieu."

Remus held up his hands and smiled just slightly.

"The Dark Lord?" Lareaux asked, stepping closer to examine him. "Scratches -- wild animals -- or a whip?"

"Does it matter?" Remus replied. Lareaux lifted his head, and he suddenly realised how close they were. Lareaux's hand hovered over his abdomen, almost touching the score-marks on the tender belly-flesh, and their eyes met. "I didn't ask what your blackmail was," he said in a hushed voice. Lareaux closed his eyes, swaying. His breath smelled of the peach liqueur they'd been drinking, not entirely unpleasantly. 

"Je suis un pédé," he said, eyes still closed.

"I don't know what that means," Remus answered, surprised at the hoarseness in his own voice. 

"Pédé," Lareaux almost spat. "Homosexual. There were photographs -- damning evidence -- "

Remus tried to remember how to breathe, but Lareaux had swayed forward, and his hand was touching Remus' skin, splaying across the scars. 

"So I fled," Lareaux continued. His eyes opened, brilliant green, slightly unfocused. "As did you."

Remus didn't move as the other man hesitantly ducked his head closer, kissing him gently. The hand on his stomach pressed harder, as if Lareaux were trying to push him away at the same time they kissed. 

There had been furtive nights at Hogwarts, twice with James and once with Sirius, when they were too young to care or think about what they were doing, and Remus wasn't entirely unclear on the concept. He lifted his hand to Gabriel Lareaux's neck and let his thumb stroke the sensitive skin just in front of the ear, below the temple. Lareaux gasped against his lips. 

"Et vous aussi?" Lareaux asked, tongue slipping over his lips, parting Remus'. Remus didn't reply. 

Then suddenly he was being pushed back onto his own bed in a tumble of touches and gasping breaths and kisses, he was slipping his hands under Lareaux's scarlet shirt and Lareaux was casting his belt aside, nearly drawing the breath from his body with the force of his kisses. They grappled, made frantic by anger and pain, lust welling up in a sudden flash that made Remus moan and arch against the man straddling him, slide his hands up Lareaux's well-muscled back (feeling other rough-scarred skin on his shoulderblades) and taste the sweet peach warmth of his mouth. 

Lareaux muttered something else in French as their bodies thrust together, but Remus didn't understand it; it was muffled against his skin as Lareaux kissed and bit at his neck. He sat up long enough for Remus to pull the shirt over his head, and the shift in pressure from lying to sitting made Remus jerk and moan. 

"Too much work," Lareaux said, scrabbling for his wand. "Nudite," he said, drawing it down Remus' chest and then his own. Their remaining clothing vanished -- Remus thought he heard a soft pop as it reappeared on the floor.

Lareaux looked down at him, eyes now a dark jade colour. Remus closed his eyes and let his head fall back against the pillow, his chin tilt upwards a little, and was rewarded with Lareaux's fingers tracing a line over his lips, down through the hollows of his throat. 

"Please," he begged, and heard a low chuckle. 

"Mon Anglais," Lareaux said. "You are like the Yankees. So quick, everything must be done now..."

He bent and kissed his lips, and Remus bucked against the heavy weight on his thighs. Since -- no, it was not right to blame that Hallowe'en for everything -- maybe even before the deaths of Lily and James, sex just hadn't been that important. Leisurely relationships were things that happened to other people. Find someone, get rid of the urge, go back to one's life; libido was one more complication he wished he could have lived without. He'd never been particularly passionate, because in the back of his mind he knew he was always going to have to end it before the next full moon.

That was why it had been so good with Sirius and James, because he'd known that in the morning they'd still be there, still be his Padfoot and his Prongs. At least that was what he told himself to explain why it had been so much better with Sirius and James. Better than with girls.

It had never occurred to him to think, Je suis un pédé. Though he suspected that pédé was a rather filthy word and probably not the one he'd use anyway. 

"Remus," Lareaux said softly, and he returned to the present to find that he was being watched, warily.

"Gabriel, please," he whispered. At the sound of his name, Lareaux smiled. 

"I was named for an angel," he said, bending slowly until they were body-to-body, kissing leisurely. 

"I was named for a conqueror," Remus answered. 

Lareaux -- Gabriel -- made small sounds of pleasure, deep in his throat, as they kissed. He closed his eyes, moaned in appreciation, moved a little so that Remus' breath hitched and he clutched his shoulders, arms curled around his back. He kissed the places between his fingers, noticing that the peculiar burn scars ran all the way up, over shoulders and down across the shoulderblades. Gabriel twitched when he slipped his hands across them. 

"The nerves, you see," he muttered, between kisses and moans. "Close to the surface."

"Almost exposed," Remus replied, wondering if they were still talking about the scars. 

Gabriel moved, then, setting a slow rhythm with the thrust of his hips, laughing as Remus instinctively moved more quickly, propping himself up so that they could see each other clearly. Even with Sirius, who was Experienced In These Things, it had never been so good.

Then the glorious, warm, heavy pressure was moving, and Remus tangled his hands in Gabriel's hair as the other man kissed his hipbone, his thigh. He lapped lazily at the head of his cock, and Remus thought he might die if he didn't --

But then Gabriel slid his lips down and sighed, lightly. Remus bucked up into his mouth, back arching, almost writhing with pleasure, as Gabriel's hands stroked his thighs and Gabriel's mouth stroked his cock and _Gabriel, please, Gabriel._

He felt Gabriel pull away even as he begged again, and thought, almost detachedly, that he didn't know a man could hover on the brink of orgasm this long. The warm pressure of the other man's body crept up again, curling against the right side of his body. A kiss was pressed to his temple. 

"Remus," Gabriel whispered, settling himself with his back against Remus' side, head pillowed on his shoulder. If he turned his head he could see the marks down his shoulderblades, deeper there, gouged -- as if he'd had wings, Remus thought dizzily, and they'd been cut out. 

Angel Gabriel. Remus smiled. 

"There is a spell -- " Gabriel said hesitantly, and Remus cut him off with the words before he could recite them himself. He slid a hand over Gabriel's hip, down his thigh and back up, over his arse, recalling this vaguely. He slipped two fingers inside the other man, slowly, and Gabriel gasped and swore in French.

"Slowly," he managed, in English, and Remus nodded as he pressed against him, inside him, oh god, oh god...

Gabriel's deep, sensuous voice filled his ears as he moved, faster now, one hand securing the other man's hips, one drifting over his waist to find his cock, stroke it lightly, and it was Gabriel's turn to writhe and demand more, faster. Remus pressed his face to Gabriel's shoulder, body shuddering in pleasure, unsure what was now him and what was Gabriel, wanting release and oblivion from the world, for a little while --

He felt his body tense and release, and whined softly. Gabriel jerked against him and moaned low, coming over his hand. 

Remus matched his breathing to Gabriel's, loosening his embrace a little. The other man turned, almost in his arms, and kissed him. Their bodies pressed together again, this time in comfort. 

"Merci," Gabriel whispered, as Remus muttered a cleaning spell. He reached up to stroke the ridge of Remus' cheekbone with his thumb, kissing his lips soundly.

"You'll have to teach me more French," Remus said sleepily, wanting to enjoy the warm and the sensation of skin-against-his for as long as it would last. 

"Why?" Gabriel asked, amused.

"So I can understand what you're saying when you swear like that," Remus answered, and Gabriel snorted against his shoulder. 

"I have taught you fencing, and now you want French. You must teach me something," Gabriel announced, sucking gently on the sensitive skin of his jaw.

"Anything," Remus murmured. He moved away briefly, kicking the covers of the bed up so that they could slip underneath them, into a warm cocoon that was him and the feel of Gabriel's skin, the smell of him, the taste of his mouth, still like peaches but also rather salty, like the skin he seemed determined to kiss every inch of. 

"I had not intended this day -- " Gabriel said softly, and then closed his eyes. "I had not intended a day, a chosen day, but I had thought..."

Remus tilted his head against the pillow, confused. 

"When you arrived I thought, aha, this Englishman, surely I will hate him, the English, they are boors," Gabriel continued. "But you were polite. Distant. The others called it cold."

"I know," Remus murmured, and he had; he'd known that his disinclination to laugh and his awkward inability to make conversation had made some of the teachers think he was cold to the point of rudeness.

"They did not look in your eyes, they did not see -- like a hurt animal which refuses to cry out," Gabriel continued. His voice was low, gentle, and even; Remus felt he might get lost in that voice. "I saw. I thought, there is in this man more than he wishes to be seen. I thought perhaps you were like me, but -- I did not want -- "

Remus pulled him closer, nuzzling against his cheek.

"We do not give up our secrets lightly. Nor will we give up each others'," Gabriel said sleepily. Remus felt a twinge of guilt, because he still had the deepest secret of all, but he covered it by kissing the other man, affectionately. They were both half-alseep already, as they kissed, and the warm press of another body against him followed him into untroubled dreams.


	2. Chapter 2

Autumn turned slowly to mild Alabama winter, and Remus was just as glad; he suddenly wanted time to pass, wanted to be old, wanted to have as much distance between himself and England as possible. The Academy was his home and he was frantic to establish it somehow. He stopped writing to Moody and Dumbledore, not that he had ever written often. He stopped assuming that someday he'd go back. Perhaps a visit. In ten or twelve years. 

Home, home, home, it sang like a pulse in his blood. When he came back to his rooms in the evening; when he walked down to breakfast in the morning, back ramrod-straight, high collar of his coat brushing his neck; when he supervised drill, taught classes, took the boys to run the fences -- home. 

Home was the Academy and its ridiculous plantation architecture, home was a warm winter, home was the comforting structure of rank. 

Home was Gabriel Lareaux, who, in the course of two months, learned every scar on his body with his mouth. There was still fencing, and afterwards there was the changing room, a lock on the door, bodies pressed against the wall. Gabriel's low voice in his ear, telling him precisely what he was going to do to him -- or sometimes, what Remus ought to do to Gabriel. There was Gabriel in his bed, and once, though Remus had been shy at first, down at the river on the warm grassy bank. 

There was also The Lie, but Remus put that out of his mind. He would tell Gabriel, of course he would. Gabriel kept secrets. He would understand. 

"Take me with you tomorrow," Gabriel said one night in early January, when Remus was almost asleep. The light of the near-full-moon shone through the window, turning Gabriel's brown hair pale, making his green eyes gleam. He was propped on one elbow, hand laid over Remus' heart, and he looked almost ghostly. 

"With me where?" Remus mumbled, eyelids drooping. He shifted closer, trying to pull Gabriel down to him, but the other man stayed where he was. 

"When you go tomorrow. To the base, to do the exercises with the soldiers." 

"What?"

"Remus, mon Anglais, please, to be paying attention. Quarte."

"Parry cinq," Remus answered automatically.

"Take me with you, I want to see what it is you do." Gabriel bent to kiss him. Sometimes Remus wondered if Gabriel was some sort of creature; when they kissed he sometimes felt like fire was being breathed into his body, and sometimes felt as though the last ounce of spirit he had was being taken gently away.

"Non," Remus muttered, but he was slowly beginning to wake up, and to panic as he did so.

"Why not? I want to come with you. Won't the soldiers allow it?" 

Remus grasped at this. "Oui. No guests."

"Then I will meet you somewhere. Think -- the wilderness, the light of the moon -- romance!"

Remus writhed as Gabriel's fingers slipped over his ribs and his waist, pulling him over so that Remus lay on top, head on Gabriel's chest.

"Non, Gabriel," he sighed, and rolled off, sitting up. Gabriel pushed himself up on one arm, looking confused, and rested his chin on Remus' shoulder.

"Afraid the soldiers will find out?" he asked, nibbling the side of his neck. Remus sighed, and bowed his head. 

"I don't go out with the soldiers," he said. "I don't leave the grounds at all."

Gabriel tilted his head against his shoulder, looking up at his face. "Then...how...? Where?"

Remus pushed himself off the bed, and Gabriel almost fell. "I'm...I have a condition." He smiled a bitter smile that Gabriel couldn't see. "I'm diseased."

Gabriel was silent. When Remus turned to look, his bright green eyes were watching him carefully.

"It's not contagious," he continued. "But I..."

"Merde," Gabriel said. "Of course. Scars and a full moon. Loup garou. Werewolf."

"I never meant to lie to you -- "

Gabriel slid to his feet, moving forward slowly. A shaft of moonlight threw a white streak across his body, illuminating the pocks and dark, marred skin on his arms. Remus stepped backwards, almost stumbling over his chair.

"And you have told no one," Gabriel said.

"The principal knows -- "

"Of course."

"Gabriel, I could lose my position, I didn't -- there are people I've told who wouldn't touch me -- " Remus broke, and covered his face in his hands to escape Gabriel's bright look. "And if you stopped touching me -- "

Gentle hands touched his shoulders and slid up his neck, fingers prying his wrists away.

"You are loup garou," Gabriel said softly, ducking his head so that their eyes met. "I have known every part of you. But always there was something more. I thought perhaps my life would be spent finding it. I was prepared to wait." 

"Gabriel please -- "

"These, your scars. Not the Dark Lord. Your own hands. Many, many years, oui?"

"I was six," Remus whispered.

Gabriel kissed him lightly, and Remus felt the tension shudder out of his body.

"I have loved men far worse than you," Gabriel said, against his lips. "I have loved those whom your grace would put to shame by its very presence. I have known men who would be shamed even by your lie."

"I'm so sorry -- "

"Non, mon Anglais, no reason to be sorry," Gabriel said with a small smile. "Come. We will sleep. Tomorrow...eh. We are young, we are handsome, we are well-paid," he said, and Remus couldn't help but smile. "Tomorrow cares for itself."

The morning after the full moon, for the first time since he'd been a boy at school, someone was waiting for him when he tumbled out of his self-imposed prison. There were hands to draw the splinters from his fingers, to salve the new scratches and bandage old re-opened scars. There was warm water trickled into his mouth and over his palms. 

And he never once mistook the horror in Gabriel's face for disgust at what he was. For once he saw only the pure, honest shock of a man seeing the sort of damage a werewolf could inflict, given half a chance.

Winter turned to spring and still there were Gabriel's hands, Gabriel's voice calling him _mon Anglais_. They danced with the lovely female teachers from the Alabama Finishing School for Young Witches at the annual ball -- Gabriel rather more deftly than Remus -- and saluted the students at graduation. That summer they travelled to Maine, to a Yankee boarding school that was running a summer session; Remus took with him a gift from his last graduating class, a briefcase with the legend _Professor R.J. Lupin_ stamped on it, and carried it with an inordinate amount of pride, which amused Gabriel to no end. They were both entertained by the principal of the school, who was very surprised to find that his two Montgomery Academy professors spoke with accents that were distinctly not Southern. 

On July thirty-first, Remus was surly and angry and hateful, and Gabriel took him out and got him drunk on moonshine he bought from a suspicious character selling it out of a vacant lot. 

Seasons rolled on and Remus got his wish for time to pass; his third Hallowe'en at the Academy, he helped supervise the rites involved in turning frightened fifth-year students into men. It was perhaps the silliest thing he'd ever seen, but then who could fathom American traditions?

And then Gabriel was gone, one full moon, taking some of the younger boys into the wilderness on mandatory survivalist training.

And the world fell apart.

***

His first and third years had already had their classes, and Remus' stomach was rumbling as he looked forward to lunch; once he recovered from the full moon he was always ravenous. The seventh-years filed in, in good order, clothing sharply ironed, boots shined, their signet rings each cocked a little; they'd be straightened on their fingers come graduation. 

"Right then, lads," Remus said, tossing a bit of chalk up into the air. It hovered, ready to take down what he said if he gave the proper command. "At ease, there you are -- "

None of them sat. He paused.

"At ease," he repeated. 

Silence. All eyes on him. 

Something ugly began to twist in his stomach.

"In your seats," he barked, in best drill-instructor tones. Still no movement. "Shall I teach you standing up like errant first-years?" he asked. "Or is this some stunt I was unaware of? Is someone going to speak, or will I write up the entire class for insubordination?"

"We don't take orders from werewolves," said Will Connors, a stocky, dark-haired boy in the second row.

Remus steadied his hands only with great effort.

"And who has been telling you that I'm a werewolf, Connors?" he asked evenly. "Since you seem to be the spokesman for the group."

"Jack Hartnett," Connors said promptly. Harnett, two rows over, stiffened slightly. "He saw you."

"If Jack Hartnett had seen a werewolf, Connors, Jack Harnett would be a part of that werewolf's digestive tract by now," Remus growled. 

"Saw you washing, sir," Hartnett said finally. "Scratches and all. Was bringing up some breakfast cos I saw your boots in the hallway and I knew you were back."

"And you're always gone for the full moon," Connors continued insolently. "You haven't been here for one in three years."

"So you are committing insubordination against a professor of this school while three months from graduation on the evidence of Jack Harnett, who doesn't know what he saw, and a little calendar work?" Remus asked. "Brave man."

Connors threw something, and faster than he could think, Remus knocked it aside; as he did so, it burned his hand, and he gripped it, wincing. 

A silver blade clattered to the ground.

When Remus looked up again, it was into the barrel of a rifle held by Michael Owens. 

"I taught you to use that thing, don't point it at me," Remus said sharply. Owens blanched, but Connors put a hand on his, steadying it.

"There's a silver bullet," he said. 

"Brave man, standing behind a rifleman," Remus replied. "Going to shoot me like the cur I am, eh, Owens?"

Owens' lips tightened, and his eyes darted towards Connors, but Connors' finger was covering Owens' on the trigger, and he did not look away.

Connors always did have the biggest balls in his class.

"We're giving you a choice, which is more than you gave us, polluting the school with your filthy blood," Connors said clearly. The other boys were looking uncertain. Shooting a man in cold blood out of sheer force of numbers didn't sit well with Honour, Strength, and Dignity.

"I taught you to be a man, Connors."

"You taught me nothing!" Connors shouted. "You fucking werewolf!"

To his surprise, Jack reached across and touched Connors' free arm, cautiously.

"You can walk out of this school now or you can die here in this classroom," Connors continued. "We won't have a scandal on our school. If you leave now, no-one but us will know."

"And a resignation due to ill health is better than a murder by a seventh-year student," Remus said, still rubbing his hand where the silver had burned it. "Honour first. That much I understand."

"Please leave," Jack said quietly, and Remus realised Jack didn't want to be here. Jack didn't want him to go at all. Jack was a stupid kid who told the wrong person what he'd seen.

"Since we're discussing honour, and dignity," Remus said slowly, "Surely you'll allow me an hour to pack my things. So that they won't pollute your fine school any further."

Connors narrowed his eyes.

"I understand the spirit of the law, as well as the letter, Connors," Remus said calmly, a dead emptiness filling him. 

"Let him," Jack urged. "Come on Con, let him get his things and go."

But it was Owens, surprisingly, who lowered the rifle, pushing Connors' hand away.

"You have an hour," he said. "Then I chamber the bullet."

***

He packed quickly and efficiently, wrapping a few precious knicknacks in his spare coat -- he had no clothing but what the school had supplied him -- and piling them on top of his trousers in the rucksack. He would not take his suitcase -- let them see the writing on top before they threw it out or burned it, and remember that it had been a gift from students who loved him.

He left the books. One could always find new copies. 

His shaving kit and socks went under the pile of scarlet shirts, his journal-notebook on top; quill and ink could be left behind. His hand paused as it moved past the pot of ink. The clock told him he had twenty minutes.

When the hour turned, Jack was at his door, standing next to Owens with the rifle. Remus shouldered the bag and nodded at them, with as dignified a look as he could muster. They flanked him out of the school, down the steps, across the dirt track that led to the gates. There he stopped, one hand on the fencepost that he'd fallen against over a year ago, and where Gabriel had caught him.

They'd planned this when Gabriel would be away. They knew the man supported him. He wondered how much they knew. 

Or if Gabriel would be next.

Owens looked ashamed to be carrying the firearm. Jack looked anxious, and very sorry.

"Jack," Remus said. "I don't blame you."

Owens glanced at the other boy, who swallowed and nodded.

"Would you deliver these for me?" he asked, holding out three folded sheets of parchment. "The names are on them. One to the principal, one for whoever is called to substitute for me, one for Gabriel Lareaux. With your own hands, Jack."

Jack hesitated, then accepted the letters, tucking them in his inside pocket. Remus turned to Owens.

"If I find out you or Connors took those letters from him, I'll come back on the full moon and rip your throats out, as you are apparently so terrified I shall do," Remus said. Owens paled. 

"You'd better go," Jack said. 

***

Gabriel Lareaux searched for five months before realising that Remus Lupin had long ago learned how to disappear. 

He waited for another six before realising that Remus Lupin wasn't coming back. 

The night before graduation, Jack Hartnett finally got up the nerve to beat the shit out of Will Connors. Connors never did walk right again. 

***

Remus knew he should have waited for Gabriel and asked for his help, his advice; he wanted Gabriel's hands on him, wanted Gabriel to run with him as far and as fast as he could from the Academy. But why should he? It wasn't as though either of them could easily get other jobs. It wasn't as though Gabriel could go back to France, even now.

And why should he leave? Remus loved the Academy, but so did Gabriel. 

_There is no reason,_ he wrote in the letter, _that you should take share in my disgrace. Were I you, I would stay. Please stay. There's no reason both of us should be unhappy._

He closed his accounts in town, changed his Galleons for Muggle dollars, paid off his tab at the bar they regularly drank at, and vanished back into the wilderness of America.

He at least had more durable shoes, this time around. 

He had that thought after the two months it took him, walking and wandering and riding cheap cash-payment buses, to get to New York City. His boots were still good, though somewhat mud-caked. 

He sat on a bench in Central Park, feeling like the homeless man that yes, he actually was. They called them that because they had no home and he, Remus Lupin, did not in fact have a single square inch of dirt to call his own. 

He did some mental math, and decided that Harry was coming up on seven years old.

He wondered if Sirius was still alive.

He wondered if little Erickson had passed his Charms midterm. The second-year boy's mind was always wandering, though Remus forgave him some of that, as the lad had a keen imagination and an unpredictable way that reminded him of James. 

He wondered how Gabriel was.

_I should write to him. Or something._

Or not.

There was no way to escape himself. No way out of the beast. Except death, of course, but he'd clung on bitterly by his teeth to life too long to consider the easy way out. 

He was a prisoner.

Two hours later he was sneaking onto an airplane bound for Australia.

That was where prisoners were supposed to go, after all.

***

Remus touched down in Sydney and walked unmolested through customs and passport-check without showing even a scrap of identification. He'd had enough money to buy a ticket, and he would never have stooped to stealing food or clothing, but it didn't seem like theft to walk onto an airplane in New York City and walk off in Australia. He barely spared it a thought.

This was a big city, smelling faintly of the ocean, cosmopolitan and full of new things. He'd always avoided living in cities, but now it was good to be lost in the crowds, to touch and be touched casually as he pushed through knots of people on the sidewalk. None of them cared if he lived or died. Which, considering the majority of his acquaintance would prefer him in an early grave, was a nice change. 

He had to change his money again; Australian wizardry was not as insular as the European and American magical communities, and they used the same currency as Muggles -- except for the rough equivalent of the Sickle, the Stamp. As he was standing in line, an Australian witch back from a holiday in Japan explained it to him. The Stamp, she said, was minted by the first wizard to come to Australia, on a prison ship along with a handful of Muggles. It was all he could do to carve out one side of a mold for a magical coin, and so he only stamped one face. 

The gleaming gold coin was smooth against his fingers on one side, marked with a crude kookaburra on the other. He tucked one away to send to his father as a souvenir.

"Flats or birds?" the witch asked, as they emerged from the changing office into the street.

"Beg pardon?" 

"Flats or birds? Call it," she repeated, and flipped the coin. 

"Flats," he said promptly. She caught the coin, uncovering it in her palm.

"You win. Let me buy you a beer," she said. He blinked. "Show you a little Australian hospitality. Or are you here with someone? Buy them a beer too."

"Er...no, thank you," he said. 

"Don't drink, eh? Buy you a tea then, Englishman?"

He flinched. "Really, I'm sorry -- "

She pouted. "Right. Look me up, if you change your mind," she added, taking his hand and scrawling something on it with a Muggle ballpoint pen. He looked down at the numbers, perplexed.

"Telephone," she said. "Ring me."

"Sure, sure..." he said, pulling away from her on the crowded sidewalk. She gave him a brilliant grin as she passed off in the other direction. 

He stared down at his hand for a while, and then looked up again. 

Friendly lot, the Australians. 

***

He had enough money for a few months' rent near the city centre; he'd have bought a new coat, but the braid and insignia came off his uniform coat easily enough. He ate cheaply at the boarding-house and spent most of his time in his room, reading, or out in the city, walking. He walked a lot. He'd gotten used to it; it was hard to think when one was sitting still. 

His room was excellent for his purposes: thick walls enhanced by silencing spells plus another small closet, which he cleaned of shelves and clothes-hangers in preparation for the moon. It was cement, which meant instead of slivers in his fingers, he woke from the Change with broken fingernails and bleeding palms. But it was his own place, and his landlady -- perhaps because greater sins than his were being committed in other rooms -- didn't pry. He knew for a fact that the man across the hallway was doing some kind of Muggle drug, and selling it too from the sound of the late-night visitors. 

He wondered if he'd spend his entire life living in rooms like this -- a bed, a dresser, a desk and a closet. Home and Hogwarts; spare bedrooms on his wanderings, the comfortable snug room in the Academy plantation-house, and now here.

Well, it wasn't such a bad way to live. And if he could find work in Australia, illegal as he was, maybe one day a house, with a sunny kitchen all his own, a living room, a cellar to lock himself up in...

It occurred to him, as he wandered the city, getting to know the streets and shops, that he wasn't really much like other people.

He didn't really like other people, either. But he still scrawled the telephone number from his hand onto a sheet of paper stuck to his wall, along with flyers and menus and other handouts picked up from downtown. If he ever figured out how to use a telephone, he might call it. 

He didn't feel particularly upset that he didn't know anyone in the entire sub-continent of Australia; he decided he already knew all the people he ever wanted to know, and quite a few he didn't want to know as well. It was easy to simply subsist on his savings, write a letter to his father once a week, and not have to care about anyone else. No birthdays to remember, no responsibilities except to himself, no-one's feelings to hurt. 

It was easy to fill the days. He considered walking for a living. Panhandlers must make decent money. 

A little spike of pride inside him said _I'd rather starve._

He'd have to find a job soon, though. Something where they wouldn't check work permits too closely. It wasn't like England, where he could go to Diagon Alley and not worry about paperwork; wizards generally didn't care about that sort of thing as much as Muggles did. The Wizarding world in Australia was much too integrated. 

And that was where not-knowing-anyone-in-the-whole-country did become a problem, because how was he going to find work without talking to people?

He hated talking to people, he decided. 

But as he sat on his bed that night, trying to read between the lines of the newspaper adverts -- "Oblivious shopkeeper seeking to hire bookish werewolf, hours flexible, low pay but satisfying position without much customer-service involvement" -- he realised he was going to have to learn to use the telephone anyhow, because they all had those stupid numbers underneath their ads. So he might as well use it to call someone who might be disposed to be friendly to him.

***

"Plucked Emu, Robert speaking."

Remus, sitting in his landlady's living room, looked at her telephone. 

"Er..." he said, slowly. "Can you hear me?"

There was a chuckle. "Aye, mate. Can I help you?"

"I think I must have the wrong number..." he said slowly. 

"Right then. No harm," the man called Robert said, and hung up. Remus carefully replaced the long-talking-into-thing on the square-dialing-numbers-on thing. After a minute he lifted it and cautiously tried again.

"Plucked Emu, this is Robert."

Remus sighed. "Sorry, it's the wrong number again."

Another good-natured laugh. "Bird give you the number, did she?"

"Bird?" Remus asked, totally lost.

"Did a girl give you the number? Here, you're not slow, are you?"

Remus paused.

"A girl did give me this number..." he said, trying to speak more quickly. "I ah...she must have given me the wrong one."

"Brunette? Witch?"

Remus nodded, then realised he couldn't be seen. "Yes..."

"That'd be Ria. She's on shift tonight. Are you the -- no, you wouldn't be the American surfer. English?"

Remus felt rather as though he was already on a job interview. "Yes."

"You the tourist who wouldn't let her buy you a beer?"

"Er...probably."

"Shoulda called her sooner, mate. Come down to the pub around ten, I'll let her know you're stopping by."

And there was a click. Remus replaced the long-talking-into-thing once more. 

Well.

Maybe they needed a dish-washer or something. 

***

Remus found the Plucked Emu without too much difficulty; it was advertised in a tourist brochure of the more magical variety, and he knew the street. He'd never paid any attention to the shabby storefront with the quizzical-looking emu on the sign, but once he ducked inside it was friendly enough, like most small pubs in Sydney. In England, for that matter. Americans had never really got hold of the concept of the pub, except for a couple of places in Boston.

"Get you something?" said the man at the bar, as he elbowed his way through the Friday-night crowd.

"Soda water," Remus said, standing on the other side of the bar, hands tapping on the edge nervously. "Uh...I called. Earlier. Twice. The wrong number."

The man grinned. "Right. I'm Robert." He held out a thick-fingered hand, and shook with a surprisingly firm grip. "You're here for a soda water and Ria, then."

"Yes, I suppose so..."

"She's in the back. RIA!" he roared, and there was a crash behind a pair of swinging doors leading into what appeared to be the kitchen. "YOUR BLOKE'S HERE!"

"HE'S NOT MY BLOKE!" came the faint reply. "ASK HIM WHAT HIS NAME IS!"

Robert looked amused. 

"Lupin," Remus supplied anxiously. "Remus Lupin. I could...come back, if -- "

"Nah. You wait here. She doesn't want you running off twice," Robert said, as he served up a small soda water in an only slightly grimy glass. Remus sipped, feeling suddenly awkward among all these people in t-shirts and jeans, with him in one of his red uniform shirts and his just-beginning-to-be-threadbare trousers. 

"I told you he'd call," Ria said over her shoulder as she emerged. Robert followed, drying his hands on a towel. "You are late!" she said to Remus, who blinked.

"It's not ten past yet," he protested.

"You're six weeks late!" 

"Oh." Remus paused. "Sorry," he added finally.

"Doesn't even bring a girl flowers. No manners at all," she continued, rolling her eyes. "Come on, I just got off shift. We're going to a club, you should come. I'm stag if you don't," she added, importuning. "Look, you're dressed up and everything."

Remus followed her out of the pub, caught up in the whirl of conversation between herself and Robert, who was apparently also coming off-shift, and another man introduced to him as Nigel. 

Remus hadn't thought men like Nigel actually existed. The phrase "flaming queer" seemed to be an understatement. Then again, coming from a werewolf who'd spent the better part of two years buggering a French fencer, he supposed he hadn't much room to talk. Nigel hung on Robert, complimented Remus on his shirt, and hated his shoes.

The club was very dark and very loud, and very full of people who were apparently trying to have sex with their clothes on under the pretence of "dancing", Nigel and Robert included. Ria settled him in a corner with their drinks and ran off to say hello to someone before popping back to the tiny table to down half her drink in a go. Remus watched the way the muscles of her throat moved as she swallowed. He felt a somewhat bewildering pang of desire. 

Je suis un pédé, he heard Gabriel's voice say. He wondered what the word for "confused" was in French. 

"So tell me, Remus Lupin," Ria said, dipping her finger in her drink and licking it, "what do you do that kept you from calling me all this time?" 

"Um..." he stuttered. "Nothing," he said finally.

"You do nothing?"

"Yes. I...walk a lot. And read. And...sleep?"

She narrowed her eyes at him. "How's that working for you?"

He seized the opportunity. "Really rotten, actually, which is why I called -- not that I didn't -- I mean -- " he faltered.

She grinned. "Spit it out then."

"I don't know anyone. At all. In the whole country. And I need to find a job, but I don't know how to use a telephone and I'm sort of...not...legal," he said finally. "That is, I haven't any papers to work."

Ria waved her hand. "Worry not! Handsome bloke like you shouldn't have any trouble. What do you do? Normally, I mean?"

"I teach. Or clerk. Or, I can clean barns. And split wood. Done quite a bit of that. Fixed fences, too. Pretty handy with Dark Arts. Defence and all," he added hastily. "I can fence, too. The sword-fighting kind, I mean."

She looked at him curiously, and somewhat skeptically.

"I don't mind menial labor," he said, unsuccessfully hiding behind his drink. "I'm a quick study."

"Might have some shifts for you at the pub. Isn't much call for fence-fixers, not in downtown Sydney," she said, and he heard a note of amusement in her voice. "Course if you were willing to hitch out into the bush, probably find you a job at a farm. Can you ride?"

"Ride what?" he asked stupidly. She hid a smile.

"Tell you what, I'll ask around. Something's bound to turn up. In the meantime, come dance."

"Oh -- I don't dance," he said, and she shrugged, vanishing into the crush of bodies. 

"Your loss!" she called, as she disappeared.

It was loud in the club, but not unpleasant; he drank slowly, making conversation when Ria or Robert or Nigel darted back for their drink, or to sit out a dance and talk. He discovered that Robert was a champion surfer, Ria was a painter, and Nigel was independently wealthy. It was peculiar, talking with people again; the most interaction he'd had with anyone since arriving, not counting Ria and her friends, was with the woman who worked at the cafe where he usually bought tea.

Then all three of them were back at once, and it was overwhelming once more; he was plucked up, pulled along, and whirled back out into the street. Ria stumbled against him, grinning, and they made it perhaps twenty paces down the darkened street before Remus realised Robert and Nigel weren't following. 

He turned back to look, nearly putting Ria off-balance, and saw just why they'd lagged behind.

Robert had pinned Nigel up against a wall in a dim corner near an alley, and they were -- well, kissing was something of an understatement, but Remus was more concerned with the way his guts knotted. Gabriel had once -- 

"Oi! Faggots!"

Ria and Remus both turned as Robert pushed away from Nigel. A gang of skinny, ragged young men were advancing down the street, past the club. One of them glared at Robert, who had turned to face them.

"Don't wanna see that crap on our streets," the boy said, as a streetlamp gleamed off his shaved head.

"Then go back to the hole you crawled out of," Robert retorted. "Nobody's forcing you to look, pervert."

The boy didn't even break stride as he backhanded Robert into the wall. Remus started forward the same time Nigel did, but Nigel was closer; he had his wand halfway out of his coat pocket before one of the other boys wrapped a chain around Robert's neck, and the leader swung a heavy club into Nigel's forehead. 

"Let them alone," Remus said, realising he'd left his own wand at home. He hadn't needed it in too long...

"Make us, faggot-lover," a fourth boy said. 

"Walk away," Remus warned. Ria tugged on his arm. 

"From you?" the leader snorted. Remus' hand shot out and he lifted the boy off his feet by his collar, batting away the swinging club as if it was a fly. Bones snapped in the boy's hand, and he shrieked. 

One of the others charged in, but Remus let instinct and a good deal of repressed rage take over, breaking his nose and possibly part of his cheekbone. Something wrapped around his wrist, and he tossed the leader away as he pulled close the idiot who'd tried to chain up his arm. 

"That," he said harshly, using a move learned from Gabriel to flip the man's body and twist his arm painfully, "was stupid."

The skinhead struggled against him, but he kept pressure on his throat with one arm until the body went limp. Something cracked across his head and he shook it, trying to clear it; as he released the body in his arms, someone pressed something blunt to the back of his neck.

The last thing he heard before collapsing was a shouted, "Stupefy!"

***

He woke handcuffed to a bed.

Not a good way to wake up, he decided. Not that he'd been in this position before; even Gabriel hadn't been quite that adventurous and Remus certainly hadn't, but he could imagine. Not a comfortable bed, either; in fact, considering the stone on one side and the bars on the other, he would go so far as to say a prison bed. 

Oh, dear.

He hardly had time to think, however, before someone was unlocking the cuffs and pulling him upright. The world spun a little until he regained his balance. He found himself looking at a young man in a sort of modified Auror's robe, who was holding his arm.

"Sorry, mate. Didn't know if you were friend or foe," the man said. "Steady on your feet?"

"Sort of," Remus said warily. 

"Can you walk? Get you out of this cell. There's coffee," the man added, as if this ought to be enough incentive for anyone. Remus followed him obediently out of the cell and down a corridor noisy with the sounds of snoring and muttering, through a doorway and into a small -- 

Interrogation room.

A paper cup of coffee was set in front of him.

"I'm locking you in. I'll be back in a mo. For your own safety," the man added.

When he was gone, Remus wrapped his hands around the warm paper cup and breathed steadily.

Aurors. Better than Muggle police, at least. Well, sort of. Muggle police would not, after all, think to look for signs of lycanthropy. 

He very quickly went over his options in his head. At best they'd let him off with a fine of some kind for public brawling. If things got bad, they might deport him. Which was, it was true, a free ticket back to Britain. 

At worst, he supposed they could have him shot. Dark Creatures who assaulted humans gave up their status as protected species. International wizarding law. He could be imprisoned without a trial. He could be executed with only a perfunctory hearing. 

God, what awful coffee.

The door opened again as he was trying to swallow another mouthful of the thin, bitter drink. A rather older man sat down across from him, while the younger one stood respectfully in the background. 

"Mr. Lupin," the man said. "My name's Anson. This is Karls."

"Mr. Anson," Remus murmured. 

"How's your head?"

"It's fine."

"You'll be happy to know your friends are all right. Big bloke took a bit of a choking. Still, you gave as good as he got. That filth'll be in hospital a lot longer than your friend will. Mean hook you've got."

Remus was silent. 

"We've taken reports and we've already determined you were acting in self-defence. Or others-defence, at any rate," Anson continued. "Not that we had to. Karls saw the whole thing. He's the one who Stupefied you."

"Sorry about that. Wasn't sure what was happening at first," Karls put in. Remus nodded at him. 

"Does that mean I can go?" he asked, quietly, not wanting to push his luck. Anson exchanged a look with Karls.

"Yes and no," he said. "You are technically free to go. We're not going to charge you with anything. But your young lady informs us you're not a Muggle, as we first suspected the lot of you were. Lose your wand, did you?"

"Left it in my rooms," Remus answered. 

"Ah. As I said, you've got a hell of a hook. You as good with your wand as you are with your fists?"

Remus drew his eyebrows together. "Ah...is this a trick question?"

Anson leaned back. "Frankly, your young lady said you're looking for work, and Karls here thinks you'd make a decent Auror. Got your head in the right place, jumping in like that, and it took two men and a Stupefication to pull you off that little Muggle brat. If you're not a complete idiot with a wand, you ought to come up to our offices and apply."

It was definitely too early in the morning for this.

"Apply...to be an Auror?" he asked. Karls nodded.

"It's a bit odd, I know, but we're...more than usually hard up for agents," Anson admitted. "There's a desperate shortage."

"Did Ria pay you to say this?" Remus asked suspiciously. Anson laughed.

"Honestly. You'd have to have an evaluation, of course, but I've seen veterans with less good sense than you showed," Karls said earnestly. 

"I'm illegal," Remus blurted. "I can't."

The silence in the room told him he probably shouldn't have said that, but then Anson looked down at the table, and tapped his fingers on it thoughtfully.

"Well, how illegal?" he asked. "I mean, you're not...wanted for anything, are you?"

"No -- but I -- I didn't immigrate -- haven't a passport," Remus said weakly.

"Oh well. That's no problem. Get you a work visa in two days," Karls waved a hand. "Is that all?"

It was one of those moments when it really, really sucked to be a werewolf. 

Because there was the Question. And now he had to either wreck his chances at a job or tell The Lie. 

"All that matters," he said, finally, and felt his conscience squirm. 

"Splendid. Grand. I'll leave you with Karls, then, he'll show you where to go," Anson said. "Welcome to the team -- I'll be seeing you again soon, I'm sure."

When Anson was gone, Karls pushed away from he wall, leaning on the table with both hands. He bowed his head, so that his lips were level with Remus' ear.

"I know what you are," he said, in a voice barely above a whisper. "Stick with me when we go up to the offices, and I'll make sure you get through the physical. We need more like you."

He'd always wanted to be an Auror. But he'd never been able to pass the most basic test for admission -- the blood test. This time Karls steered him deftly around that, and intimidated anyone who got in his way into giving them a pass on to the next examination.

And suddenly there was a new uniform for Remus Lupin to wear. This one was dark blue, and had the Australian flag on one shoulder. It came with a badge.

Ria was very impressed.

***

He didn't get to wear his blue trainee uniform immediately, of course. The new training course wasn't set to start until they'd filled the class, and that took three weeks. During that time the full moon came and went, leaving him sore but whole for the first day of class. As he sat in the small auditorium -- room for sixty or seventy, easily, though there were only twenty recruits -- he tapped his fingers nervously on the edge of the arm. 

He'd taken a seat apart from the knot of people who were there when he'd arrived, and he could tell that they were all younger than him, some by several years; at least half looked to be fresh from school.

Being in-uniform again felt odd, like assuming an old life he'd somehow shed temporarily. His back automatically straightened and he kept fiddling with the sleeves, which were longer than the tailored ones of the Academy's coats. 

When the instructor entered, he stood automatically and instinctively; one always did, for a superior.

The others snickered. He felt himself flush, but before he could bend to sit down again, the young woman pointed at him. 

"Name!" she barked.

"Lupin, Remus John, ma'am," he replied sharply. 

"Trainee?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Can you tell me what your comrades in arms are doing wrong, Lupin?"

"Ma'am?" he asked.

"You're a goddamn genius, Lupin," she continued. "The rest of you, on your feet, if you please."

The others rose, quickly and disorganisedly; papers and pens fell to the floor, along with the coat of one of the recruits, who'd slung it across the back of her chair.

"This is not a finishing school," the woman said. "This is not a bloody hobby nor is it a good way to get out of telling your parents you can't get a job anywhere else. This is boot camp, my children, and you are the boots. My name is Hobson, and I am supposed to teach you what you need to know to keep from getting killed." She leaned back against the lectern, crossing her arms. "In Britain, Aurors train for three years. In America they train for sixteen months. In Europe, Aurors are normally selected from military positions and given ten months extra training. How long is this program?" she demanded, glaring at one of the youngest students, and one of only four women.

"E...eight weeks," the woman managed.

"Eight weeks what?"

"Eight weeks...ma'am."

"You're damn right, Eight weeks ma'am. And do you know why? Trainee Lupin?"

"Labour shortage, ma'am?" he ventured. 

"D'you see this hall? Every class should fill this hall to capacity. And yet I'm stuck with nineteen half-wits and an English import who still can't get his collar tabs straight."

Remus knew this was a test. He'd seen upperclassmen at the Academy talking to younger boys this way. He didn't fiddle with his collar. Hobson's expression didn't change, but her eyes gleamed, and he knew he'd passed. 

"I have eight weeks to make you into competent, fight-ready keepers of law and order. If you cannot kick arse by the end of this, you will at least be able to prod buttock. Is that funny?" she asked, as one of the men stifled a chuckle.

"No ma'am," he replied. "I am sure you are not funny in the slightest, ma'am."

There was a moment of silence.

"Very well then," she said, turning away from her scrutiny of the young man. "Your schedule is as follows. History of Magical Law, Defensive Charms, Tactical Strategy also known as How To Lie Effectively, and Muggle Relations in the morning; in the afternoon, Duelling, Offensive Charms, Handling of Magical Creatures, and Muggle Arms. You will notice that you are wearing blue and I am not. Why is this, miss..." she consulted her notes. "Jones?"

"Trainee, ma'am," said Jones, who seemed to be a quicker learner than some of the others. 

"That's right. If you manage not to wash out of this program, you will be provided with uniforms colour-corresponding to your position in the organisation. While you are in blue, you are the lowest of the low. You are also liable to have Muggle tourists asking you questions as if you were a member of their police force. You are to answer courteously and try not to say anything stupid. Do you think you can manage that, Mr. Jackson?"

The smartarse from earlier tossed off a sharp salute. "Known for my tact, ma'am."

"I've no doubt," Hobson said sourly. She was beginning to remind Remus of Professor McGonagall. A very angry, very loud Professor McGonagall. 

The others were casting sidelong glances at him. They didn't look friendly. 

It was going to be a long eight weeks. 

***

The problem was not, Remus finally decided, that he was any more competent than the others; he was just older, and he'd been a teacher for three years. Plus, he had all of the deviousness and trickery he'd learned from James and Sirius at his disposal.

Once in a while he caught himself thinking of James or Sirius or Peter or Lily without his heart seizing up. That was probably a good thing.

At any rate, the other students at the Aurors' Academy didn't like him because he knew how to shine his boots and iron his trousers properly, he knew a lot of charms already, and the instructors took him on as their golden boy -- even if they did berate him worse when he failed. He'd been able to answer competently in Muggle Arms that he knew rifle, pistol, hand-to-hand and (before he'd thought about it, he blurted it out) epee; still, the others did tend to do better in Muggle Relations. Remus didn't relate particularly well to anyone, Muggle or otherwise. 

It was little things they did, small revenges. Borrowing his class notes and losing them. Tripping him when he walked down the aisle. Hitting him rather harder than necessary in Muggle Arms. Using the most embarrassing hexes on him during Duelling class.

He fought back by being very quiet and very competent and fleeing as soon as class let out. Besides, the torment of a bunch of nineteen-year-old brats was small in the scheme of things. His world was opening up again. He had friends from the Plucked Emu -- lord knew why they liked him, but they did. Ria got drunk with him occasionally and did the most amazing things with her tongue, and besides she was smart and pretty and helped him in his history courses, where they usually assumed he knew much more Australian history than he did.

And best of all, he was going to be an Auror. He'd known since he was sixteen that he never could be, but here he was. Even if the others didn't like him, even if his father sent him worried letters wondering about the wisdom of his son going into such a dangerous field, Remus didn't care. He was going to be an Auror. He loved the classes, loved the duelling, loved the structure and organisation. You never had to wonder. You knew who your superiors and inferiors were (everyone and civilians, in that order). 

What finally got him into trouble, although not exactly trouble he couldn't handle, was ironically just someone trying to do him a favour. 

Hobson was shouting Jackson into submission during class one day, after he'd unwisely made a joke that Remus hadn't been paying attention to, when Auror Karls appeared in the doorway. She stopped immediately and gestured the class to their feet. 

"Lupin," Karls called, and Remus craned his neck to see over the heads of the others. "Speak with you?"

Remus was heavily aware of the stares directed his way as he walked to the doorway. Nobody was paying attention to Hobson, who had resumed her shouting somewhat half-heartedly.

"Full moon's in three days. Don't want you to lose credit," Karls said, passing him a folded sheet of parchment. "These are your orders. You're on special assignment from the day of the full moon through the two days following. Should give you time to rest up."

"I don't understand. Sir," Remus added, unfolding the sheet. It was a letter of excuse from Karls to Hobson, allowing him three days off for special work under Karls.

"You're to take the time off. You have no actual assignment. This is just for paperwork's sake, so you don't get graded down," Karls said. 

"Thank you..." Remus trailed off, surprised. "Can I ask a question, sir?"

Karls nodded.

"Why are you helping me?"

The other man smiled. "There's a shortage of good Aurors, and you're going to be really good, when you're done training. And..." he shrugged. "I've an aunt who's a werewolf." 

He clapped Remus on the shoulder, and sent him back into the room. Remus waited until Hobson had finished talking, and presented her with the letter.

"Very well, Lupin," she barked. "Today's Monday. We'll see you again on Friday?"

"Yes, ma'am," he answered. The others whispered among themselves until a glare from Hobson silenced them.

"Special duty. Nice work if you can get it," she added, and Remus fought a wince. As if he wasn't unpopular enough. 

And sure enough, he was cornered outside the small training gymnasium at the end of the day. By his count, fifteen of the other nineteen were there.

"Special duty," one of the men said. "Nice work if you can get it."

"I'm not here to pick a fight," Remus replied. 

"We are," said another, and they all smirked. "We're tired of you making us look bad, Lupin."

Remus bit down the first reply that came to his lips; then perhaps you should work harder. Instead, he answered, "I don't think this was a reward. I think it's a punishment."

"Punishing the golden boy?" Jones asked, her voice almost shrill.

"It's out of my hands -- " Remus began, trying to push past them, but he was shoved backwards. 

"Is it now?" Jones demanded. Remus sighed, and bit down on his temper. _You can take it out on the punching bag later._

One of the other woman, Maya, touched Jones' shoulder. "All we're asking is for you to tone it down a little, Lupin. Don't be quite so gung-ho."

"Aurors are the best of the best," he answered. 

"And you're better than us, is that it?"

"No -- but we should be competing -- instead of trying to pull each other down -- not that I'm -- "

He never got to finish, because Jackson's pal Balcock threw a punch at him. 

It was a dirty scuffle, but it was at least fair; none of the others joined in, and Remus knew if he pulled his punches he could win without hurting Balcock too badly. But then Balcock tried a wrestling hold on him, and as he broke free the buttons came off his shirt -- 

"Oh holy Jesus," someone said, as Balcock froze, Remus' shredded shirt clenched in his hand. Remus took the opportunity to catch his breath, and then realised he was still the centre of attention. 

Well, not him. The scars on his bare skin, really. 

"What the hell did that?" someone asked in a hushed voice. Remus looked around for his satchel and coat, but they'd gotten lost in the first few moments of grappling. 

"None of your concern," he answered, tearing the shirt from Balcock's hand. It ripped further, and he tossed it to the ground in disgust. 

Still silence.

"Stare, then," he said finally, spreading his arms. "You've done enough of that. You think I ought to care what you do to me? You think you can beat me worse than what did this?"

Several of the trainees in the back began to sidle away. He whirled on Balcock, who flinched.

"Do you think I've lived this long just to give up because some pissant kid blacks my eye? Do you, Balcock?" he demanded, red rage rising in front of his eyes. The wolf was close to the surface anyway, this near the full moon, and he could almost feel his teeth lengthening, his hands hooking into claws. "Have you any idea what's waiting out there for you?"

And then the answer hit him.

_Me._

_I'm the sort of thing they're training to fight._

The thought pushed back the rage instantly. He let his hands fall. "Get out of here. All of you. Now."

Balcock kicked up dust, he fled so fast. The others drifted away, until only one person remained.

Hobson was staring at him.

"I saw the crowd," she said. "I came to find out -- I just heard the end. Merlin's fingernails, Lupin, what the hell happened to you?"

He reached for his coat, lying in the dust. He pulled it on apologetically, and she reached out a hand to brush some dirt off one sleeve.

"Voldemort," he said, falling back on the old lie. "I was in Britain when he was on the rise. I got off lightly, compared to some."

"You can make a formal report against Balcock," she said, handing him his satchel.

"No reason to. He's a stupid boy. He doesn't know any better."

"He will after this."

He gave her a smile. "Probably so, ma'am."

When he appeared in class again on Friday, stiff and still feeling tired, nobody tripped him. Nobody looked at him. Nobody said anything to him, in fact, except for Balcock, who pressed a fresh blue uniform shirt into his hands after their first class and muttered an apology.

Well, it was better than outright dislike, he supposed.

***

What Remus came to realise in the days after Balcock ripped off his shirt and the others (much younger and far less haunted) saw his scars, was that the Sydney branch of the Aurors in Australia was not, in fact, the best of the best. 

He watched them now, wary in case his fight with Balcock had stirred up resentment further, but clearly the scars had, for once, worked in his favour. (When he'd shown them to Ria she couldn't touch him for a week, but at least she didn't outright hide, and gradually she got used to them -- though she still wouldn't put her hands on them like Gabriel had). 

They weren't the best and brightest. Some of them quite clearly had learning gaps that a fourth-year Hogwarts boy could have filled. But they were clever, like criminals were clever, and they understood human nature better than he did. They were street-fighters, gutter-kids, rejects from the rest of the civilised world. 

No wonder they'd hated him, with his stiff back and his clipped answers and his perfect courteous respect. He represented everyone who'd ever shoved them around before they were recruited. They hadn't respected him, because they didn't respect the same things he did.

The scars changed all that.

But it didn't change them.

They were slated to graduate on Hallowe'en and it was only when this was announced that Remus realised he'd missed Harry's birthday; he hadn't even thought of it, being so wrapped up in his own new life. 

Perhaps that was just as well. He didn't want to think about Harry. 

Auroring in Australia was rough-and-tumble: knuckle-breaking fistfights with Muggles, duels with petty thieves, corralling magical creatures who'd happened to get loose. It didn't pay particularly well, but then Remus had never been rich, and he was used enough by now to self-restraint that it wasn't even a hardship anymore; he ordered water instead of alcohol out of habit, bought his books second-hand, and didn't own more than one suit of clothing that wasn't a uniform. He took vacation days, sick leave, or "special assignment" from Karls at the full moon, and if he wasn't actually friends with any of the others in his class, the older Aurors took a shine to him and were at least sociable. He heard the whispers once in a while, about his body, but no-one ever asked to see the scars. 

After graduation he expected to get a beat to walk, which was mostly what the new Aurors did; in a few years he might make investigator or go into a specialty -- handling of magical creatures appealed to him, though it wasn't very well-respected. It meant fewer people to deal with. 

Instead, at graduation Hobson gave him his order papers and a maroon shirt, and the rest of the trainees looked uneasily at him. Maroon meant jump-out agents, and there was a reason they wore that colour. It hid the bloodstains. 

He stared down at it in shock for a little while before opening his papers, which confirmed the assignment. There was a note from Karls explaining that they needed a few indestructible men in the agency. 

Jump-out agents had half the life expectancy of a regular Auror, on average. Then again, most of them died a lot easier than a werewolf did. It was an optional assignment, when offered; it meant you spent most of your time at headquarters, keeping busy, and the rest going out on specific calls, filling in where regular Aurors couldn't or reinforcing by strength of numbers. It was risky business, done by men who had grown to habitually expect the unexpected.

Well, it wasn't as though he placed any particularly high value on his life. He took the assignment. 

Hallowe'en night they all got out and got very drunk to celebrate graduation, and Remus ordered water and watched them. Then he went home and slept. There didn't seem to be anything else to do. He'd lost James and Lily and Peter; Sirius had lost himself, and good riddance; the Academy and Gabriel had gotten lost. 

But Remus Lupin was still living and living people had to sleep, and eat, and go on with their lives. He didn't have the energy for grief anymore; rage took too much effort. He just slept, and woke up the next morning, had his breakfast, pressed his new uniform, put it on, and showed up promptly at nine for work. 

The rest of the graduates stumbled in around eleven, bleary-eyed, but Lupin had already hit his first call, and the older agents were impressed that the new bloke hadn't even looked ill when he saw his first dead body. Ambitious, they said. Anson's pet, got recruited by Karls. He'll burn out soon enough. Bet you he throws up in the lav this evening, when he has to look at the photos and write his report. 

He wrote his report while devouring a box of cold curry someone left for him on his desk. 

Lupin, they decided by consensus, was a little weird. Pretty good, for a trainee, but definitely a little weird. 

***

Ria ended things in early January, which was just as well; he hardly had time to take care of himself anymore, let alone pay the sort of attention to her that a friend or an occasional boyfriend required. If he wasn't busy he was sleeping; Ria had never been particularly monogamous, and she'd only been in it for the fun, anyhow. He stopped being fun; she stopped coming round.

Domestic disturbances, misuse of muggle artifacts, Muggle altercations where wizards were involved, cleanup after some mess or another; his life was a cycle of sleeping, eating, fixing other peoples' problems, and long lulls at Headquarters where he helped with research and paperwork, or read newspapers for important clippings. He got called out as backup for Balcock once, with a couple of other agents who happened to be there -- an infestation of Boggarts in a warehouse, which Balcock at least knew better than to tackle alone. Afterwards, Balcock bought him a beer, which was nice, and tried to pump him about why he was afraid of crystal balls, which wasn't so nice, but Remus made up a story about a prophecy someone told him when he was little. 

Life was, if not serene, then at least untroubled. There was a lot of bad food in it, and a lot of paperwork, but Remus had never minded paperwork.

Before he knew it a year had passed, and he'd forgotten Harry's birthday again. He realised it'd been years since he'd remembered anyone else's, either. Harry was seven. James and Peter and Lily would have been twenty-six or twenty-seven, like himself. 

He didn't even spare a thought for whether Sirius "would have been" or "was"; people died in Azkaban all the time, and it was more than likely that Sirius had. Though if it had happened in the last year, he'd certainly have read about it. He was one of the people in charge of reading and clipping the Prophet, at Headquarters. 

Which was why he was surprised when he walked into the office one morning in late November and found his desk empty of newspapers. 

"No Prophet today?" he asked Karls, who was digging around in a file cabinet. Karls glanced up, and a guilty look crossed his face. 

"Hobson's handling it today," he said. 

"Hobson? But hasn't she got the Moscow News?" Remus asked.

"She said she could handle both," Karls shrugged. 

Remus set his briefcase down on the table and crossed his arms. "I'm an Auror, Karls. I know when people are lying to me."

"Talk to Hobson then," Karls replied, waving a file at him. "Got what I wanted. Stick around, though, there's been some trouble in the city centre with a couple of half-wits running a magic shop who can't seem to tell Muggles from Wizards."

The rest of the office were watching him warily. He sat down and picked up his wand, spinning it in his fingers idly.

"Accio Prophet," he said, and a flutter of crumpled paper flew out of someone's desk drawer. 

"Listen, Lupin, it's for your own good -- " an agent said hastily, but Remus just glanced at him as he smoothed the front page.

Sirius' face stared up at him, and he flinched back.

YEARLY INSPECTION YIELDS ESCAPE TRY, read the typically half-nonsense headline. The words seemed to shift in front of his eyes, and he rubbed his forehead, ignoring the grim, lined face staring at him.

_During a routine inspection of Azkaban prison by Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge late yesterday afternoon, life-term convict Sirius Black was caught in Azkaban's first escape attempt in nearly twenty years. Prison officials say they do not know how Black, who was recently transferred from solitary confinement to a lower-security wing, managed to escape his cell. They credit the keen eyesight of an as-yet unnamed administrator in spotting the man, who appeared to have decided to take advantage of the sunset to make a break for the water's edge. Black has been returned to the prison and re-instated in the solitary wing under heavy guard._

_Sirius Black has been imprisoned in Azkaban for eight years following his role in the deaths of James and Lily Potter, as a spy for You Know Who..._

Below Sirius' photo, inset against it, was that bloody, blasted picture again. They hadn't cropped him out of it; the Prophet never did. It was captioned _Remus Lupin, close friend of Sirius Black, views the wreckage of the Potters' House in Godric's Hollow, Nov. 1, 1981._

Everyone in the room was unabashedly watching him. 

"Didn't make a very good job of it, did he?" Remus asked, flattening the rest of the paper and sorting it out into neat piles. 

"Lupin, if you want to take the day -- " Karls said, from the doorway. 

"I'd rather not, if it's all the same to you."

"It was more of an order than a request."

Remus glanced at his superior officer, a twenty-year veteran who reminded him of Alastor Moody, if old Mad-Eye had lost all his hair instead of his sense of humour. The older man looked at Karls.

"If the boy wants to work, let him work," he said. Remus nodded.

"I wasn't just Sirius' friend," he added, fingers smoothing every small crease of the newspage. "I was James' friend too, and Lily's. And Peter Pettigrew's."

"The article talks about you later on," Karls murmured. 

"Just so you don't think I'm a monster."

"Nobody in England seems to know where you are."

"The people who matter do."


	3. Chapter 3

In all honesty, Remus felt almost triumphant about the photograph, when he thought about it. It meant he wasn't running from it anymore. He'd stayed and faced down his colleagues and they were going to let him keep working. 

Two weeks later he decided bolting might not have been such a bad idea after all.

"Lupin!" Hobson called, from her office up the stairs. "Front and centre, Hogwarts!"

Remus, puzzled as to what she meant by that as it wasn't exactly a common nickname (or common knowledge), climbed the stairs and peered in the door. Hobson was seated at her desk, piles of paperwork floating magically over it, some so tall they nearly reached the ceiling. Hobson was not known for her literary efficiency.

"Got a diplomatic job for you, Lupin," she said, rifling through one of the floating piles, pulling a folder out mid-way. "Files tagged you as a Hogwarts graduate, is that right?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Mmh. You were a good little schoolboy. What happened?" she asked with a grin, and he saw his NEWTs scores resting in his dossier. 

"Put it to bad use, ma'am," he replied.

"Clearly, if you ended up here," she said, eyes still scanning his file. After a while, he cleared his throat.

"You said something about a diplomat, ma'am?"

"Diplomacy, actually. We've got a bunch of wizarding tourists coming in for the Christmas hols, including a contingent from Hogwarts. Need you to keep 'em from falling off a cliff or getting eaten by a wombat or something," she said, closing his file and tossing it onto the desk. "There's three professors and four students, they're here for a symposium on Magical Creatures. Your job is to take them wherever they want to go and keep them safe."

He blinked. "Hogwarts professors? Here?"

"I always said you were a goddamn genius, Lupin," she sighed. "I've ordered files on them from the British branch, and they're sending details about special housing requirements and the like, if any..." she dug through another pile, producing a scrawl-covered bit of parchment. "Couple of students, ages fifteen through eighteen, Albus Dumbledore -- assume you know him -- "

"Yes, ma'am," Remus said, keeping his voice from cracking only by swallowing quickly. His mouth had gone very dry.

"Right...Minerva McGonagall...is she the animagus?"

He smiled. "One of seven this century, yes."

"She any good for anything aside from turning into a cat?"

"Damn good professor, ma'am."

"Coming from you, high praise," Hobson drawled. "And some chap named Flitwick. Plum job for you, Lupin. Mind, don't let anyone die...off with you, then. They're arriving day after tomorrow, I'll have the files delivered down to you when I get them."

He wasn't sure it was quite good manners to be reading government dossiers on the people who used to be his schoolteachers, especially as he was going to have to spend two weeks acting as tour-guide-slash-bodyguard. Not that Dumbledore needed bodyguarding, he supposed, and McGonagall certainly didn't. Still, it was fascinating reading, and if he weren't bound by a code of conduct he'd definitely have brought up a couple of the more amusing details in McGonagall's file. 

They were arriving by chartered airplane, although the transoceanic floo lines were up and operating more or less efficiently. Most people were still wary of them, and if they had students to look after, it would make things difficult. The afternoon of their arrival, he brushed his hair for the millionth time, checked the creases on his trousers and the starch in his uniform collar, shined his shoes, and presented himself at the airstrip where they were landing. 

He watched, standing to attention next to Hobson and an official delegation from the Sydney wizarding community, as Dumbledore stepped out of the airplane. He was followed by a string of weedy-looking students -- surely he'd never been so young and gawky? -- and Professor McGonagall, who looked more or less unchanged since his school days. As did Dumbledore, he reflected, but then one expected that of Dumbledore; you couldn't imagine him changing with the years. 

And then a dark shape emerged behind McGonagall, a dark shape that was impossibly tall for Flitwick -- 

"Who the hell is that?" Hobson demanded. 

Remus gaped.

"You know him, Lupin? Pull your chin up."

He snapped to, before the others could see his shock, and said, out of the corner of his mouth, "Severus Snape. It has to be."

"Who's Severus Snape? What about that chap Flitwick? Lupin, you're white as a sheet."

"I..." he stammered, but he hadn't the faintest idea what to say. Or why the idea of seeing Snape was so much, much worse than seeing Dumbledore and McGonagall.

"Dives headlong into a four-way fistfight but scared of a Hogwarts professor? What, did he make you do lines in school?"

"No...ma'am...just rather...surprised to hear he's at Hogwarts, that's all. I...we knew each other, sort of, we were students together, I'd lost contact with him over the years..."

And then Dumbledore was coming forward to greet the officials and the students were all being introduced. Hobson was introducing him, too, and Dumbledore smiled and twinkled, and it was McGonagall's turn to gape. A sallow-faced Snape loomed behind her shoulder -- the same lanky build, the same long hair, new lines in his scowling face.

"Lupin," he growled, as they were introduced -- re-introduced. 

"Snape," Remus replied. "Professor Snape?"

"Oh -- you hadn't heard?" McGonagall asked. "Severus was a last-minute addition to our trip. Professor Flitwick was called away on family business. He's our new Potions Master -- just over seven years now, isn't it, Severus?"

"Just over," Snape agreed shortly.

"But look at you, an Auror," McGonagall continued. "Australia suits you, Remus."

"He has always managed to suit himself to his surroundings," Snape muttered. 

"Lupin's going to be your chaperone while you're in town," Hobson said with an assumed cheerfulness, as she broke away from a quiet conversation with Dumbledore. 

"Pleasure to serve, Headmaster," Remus added, as Dumbledore smiled at him again. "I'm here to provide whatever you need. If you come this way there's a cab waiting to take you to your lodgings..."

Severus Snape glared at him, or rather at the back of his head, the whole way there. And glared at him over the dinner they ate at a restaurant Remus recommended. And glared at him as Remus answered students' questions about his job. And glared at him as he left them off at their hotel again. 

Considering it had been eight years, not a whole lot had changed.

***

The children that Dumbledore brought along to the symposium were the picture of Hogwarts youth -- intelligent, curious, mischievous, and somewhat distant. Remus had forgotten there were schools in the world where military discipline was not encouraged or relied upon. His own lads at the Academy had been just as smart and inquisitive, but they had also been, if not overly familiar with, then at least open to their professors, as the structure allowed them to be. When a professor asked you a question, you answered it promptly, fully, and truthfully, which often led to surprisingly personal revelations when one was interrogating a boy with a black eye from a bully, or one caught hiding behind quarters because he wanted to have a private cry about his pet who'd just died. 

The Hogwarts students were less well-mannered but more frank, and he took a liking to them -- especially Weasley, who had an unparalleled passion for dragons. Young Charlie was fifteen, the son of a man Remus had known slightly from the Order. The Weasleys hadn't been members, but they'd been supporters, and he was passingly familiar with them. 

He met the students in the lobby of the hotel for their first morning of the conference, and then presented himself to Dumbledore for orders.

"I can stay with the students, sir, or I can remain with the largest group; I assume you'll be separating during the day, considering the amount of classes and panels being offered," he said crisply. The students were still yawning, except Charlie, who was vibrating with enthusiasm. Snape and McGonagall were examining conference brochures, occasionally comparing notes on an interesting-looking event. 

"Minerva," Dumbledore said, and the deputy Headmistress glanced up at him over her glasses. "I believe you wanted to attend the Care And Handling lecture this morning, did you not?"

She nodded. "I don't think it's quite appropriate for students," she added. "If you prefer, I could certainly take them to another lecture..."

"No, I don't see why you ought to. I should like to attend the panel on the legislation of dragons, and I suspect -- " he broke off before he finished, as Charlie's face lit up eagerly. "Well then. That leaves Professor Snape with Bones, Finch, and Gregot; perhaps you ought to go with them, Mr. Lupin."

"As you like, sir," Remus said, inclining his head slightly in what Hobson referred to as Civilian Salute #3: Polite Deference. The students spent a few whispered moments in consultation amongst themselves, heads bent over another conference schedule, before one of them (probably Finch; he'd known a Finch at school, and the girl bore a slight resemblance to her) turned to Snape, speaking somewhat apprehensively. 

"We'd like to take the lecture on Griffin Preservation, Professor," she suggested. "And then Gregot and Bones want to see the Kneazle Obedience Trials before lunch. I'd like to hear the talk on Rare Wand Cores."

"So would I." Snape nodded curtly and began to walk towards the conference hall where the Griffin Preservation lecture was supposed to be. Remus gestured for the students to follow, trailing behind them so he could watch them all at once.

"I'll take the pair of you to the Obedience Trials, if you like," he said, to Gregot and Bones. "We're thinking of getting one at the office, like the Muggle police have with dogs."

"Brilliant," Gregot grinned at him. "Bet you could get us really good seats pulling rank, couldn't you?"

"I'm afraid I can't do that, Mister Gregot. You overestimate how important Aurors are around here."

"Oh, you can call me Ath," Gregot replied, and Remus recalled that the poor boy had been saddled with the name Athenaeus Gregot. "And that's Ben," he added, jerking a thumb at Bones. "You're allowed to do that, right?"

"Don't push your luck," Remus said with a smile, as they filed past Snape into their seats. Snape gestured him forward, but he shook his head.

"I'm on duty," he said, seating himself on a step in the aisle. Snape shrugged and seated himself one seat in, leaving the aisle empty. Remus sighed to himself. The irony of being a more-or-less bodyguard for a man he'd once tried to kill wasn't lost on either of them, he decided. Snape hadn't, until sixth year, hated him as violently as he had James and Sirius; after the Prank, it had been closer to fear. 

He swept the sizable audience, noticing the doors, the covered-over windows, the magical screen for the slide-show. He didn't actually think any of his charges were in danger, but he was nothing if not thorough. He saw other Aurors, in a variety of colours -- red jump-outs like himself, cream-shirted investigators, beat-walkers in green, and one or two Special Services Aurors in bright canary yellow. 

Perhaps some sort of threat had been made against the conference -- he saw no other point in having so many badly-needed Aurors babysitting a bunch of academics. Surely they'd have told them something, though...

A horrifying thought occurred to him; if Hogwarts and -- yes, there were Beauxbatons students in the left wing audience, and he could see Tokyo College of Witchcraft girls filing in past them -- if schools were coming here, perhaps there were Academy boys in the audience. 

He stifled the thought quickly; they weren't likely to remember him, if they even saw him. Instead he concentrated on his job, like he was supposed to be doing. When the lights went down for the lecture to begin, he cast an oculis nox charm so that he could see in the dark. He noticed other Aurors doing the same, their eyes glowing like coppery coins in the dark. 

He glanced over at Snape, and saw the man's pale fingers tapping almost nervously against his knee. The children had taken out parchment and quill and were taking notes, no doubt with the knowledge that there would be questions about the lecture afterwards. 

Snape a professor, and himself an Auror. When had they grown up?

***

The kneazle obedience trials had been almost interesting enough to distract him from his guard duties. Having to mind two teenage boys hadn't helped, especially as Bones had the tendency to wander off. He was glad to rejoin Snape, Dumbledore, and McGonagall for lunch in the big banquet hall, the professors on one side of the table and the students on the other. The children exchanged notes excitedly while Dumbledore tried to draw Snape out of his sullen silence. Remus decided, from the way both Dumbledore and McGonagall were treating it, that this was probably par for the course. A shame that Snape could take so little joy out of life. Or at least a shame that he couldn't try a little harder to pretend to be amiable. 

It took him by surprise when, at the end of lunch, Dumbledore remarked as they were leaving that he imagined Remus and Severus were getting on well.

"More or less, I suppose," he said, puzzled. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, you both seem of a somewhat silent, solitary disposition," Dumbledore said. "Severus is not generally friendly with the other professors; perhaps he appreciates someone who does not expect it of him."

"The job doesn't come with expectations, except to serve," Remus replied. Dumbledore smiled a little, gently.

"And is the job all there is?" he asked. Remus felt a sharp twist inside him. 

"That's all that matters, sir," he answered. Dumbledore turned to where Snape was impatiently waiting for the children to make up their minds about the afternoon.

"Much of a likeness, the two of you," he repeated. "Ah, and I see a former student of mine, do excuse me. I think you had best stay with the students, wherever they may go," he added, as he ambled away.

Remus considered his words, his mind occupied with them while his eyes and ears were open for trouble. A silent, solitary disposition...surely not. He spoke as much as any of his fellow Aurors; he never particularly wanted to be as close to anyone as he had been to James and Peter and Sirius at school, or -- or Gabriel. 

If Snape was solitary, he thought, it was probably because he was a grown man, chaperoning a handful of teen-aged students and accompanied by two senior professors. It wasn't as though he had much in common with either his colleagues or his charges. 

Which was probably what made him stop Snape, just after the panel on Magical Zoology let out, with a hand on his sleeve. The students were with McGonagall; they'd be all right for two minutes. 

"Severus," he said quietly. "Can I have a word?"

Snape looked at him, alarmed, and allowed himself to be pulled out of the flow of foot traffic. 

"Something the matter, Auror?" he sneered.

"No -- nothing to do with the conference," Remus replied evenly. "I know you've some free time after the keynote dinner -- a few of the other Aurors and myself are going for drinks. You ought to come along, see Sydney outside of the hotel."

Snape stared at him in utter amazement, and Remus wondered if he was about to sneer again, or merely drop dead of surprise. He didn't wait for him to decide.

"Grand. I'll meet you in the lobby at eight," he said, clapping him on the arm, which was probably an enormous mistake, but he wasn't going to give Snape time to recuperate. "My supervisor wants a word before the dinner, excuse me," he added, and ran to catch up to Hobson, who was buttonholing Aurors as they passed, handing out parchment letters.

"Lupin, how's the delegation from the mother country?" she asked with a feral grin, and pressed a letter into his palm. "Some notes about tomorrow, nothing urgent."

"Thanks -- have you seen Karls? He was organising a pubcrawl tonight and I wanted to let him know I'd be there."

"Drowning your sorrows?"

"And a friend's."

"I didn't know you had friends," she said, with an amused grin to take the sting from her words. He smiled back quickly. "I'll let him know, I've got notes for him. Run along, Hogwarts, and enjoy your reunion."

He saluted quickly, and joined the throngs heading towards the banquet hall for dinner. 

He suspected Snape would show up, even if he didn't want to; there had been an element of I-dare-you in his offer, and a quick flash of competitive spirit in Snape's eyes. If nothing else, the evening would be...interesting. 

Oh good lord, what had he got himself into.

***

They started drinking at a hole-in-the-wall downtown that evening; Karls, Hobson, the regrettable Balcock, Jones, and a few others converged on the little bar, frequented by policemen and Aurors, Remus leading a reluctant and recalcitrant-looking Snape. He introduced him as a mate from school, which made Snape scowl but made the others rather more welcoming. 

"So here's my plot," Karls said, as they clustered around one of the small tables, sipping drinks. "I say we take off from here after another round, hit George Street, head out to The Rocks and cause trouble there, circle back...Lupin, are you still on terms with that bird from the Plucked Emu?"

"We talk," Remus said shortly.

"No reason she'd like to throw a drink in your face?"

"None I'm aware of," Remus said, and a few of the others chuckled. "It's down near that curry place. Good eating there, the late-night chef doesn't ash in the food."

He saw Snape's lip wrinkle slightly in disgust, and fought down a smile. At least it was a reaction. 

George Street's bars were dingy and slightly grubby, but the drink was cheap, and Remus stood his round there, which freed him from the guilt of drinking the rounds others paid. Most of the Aurors drank Muggle, Victoria Bitter, as it was hard to come by firewhiskey or butterbeer and one never really knew when it was safe to order it -- that was what all-wizarding pubs like the Plucked Emu were for. It helped that the Auror uniforms weren't robes, and one or two Muggles were clearly surprised by Snape's somewhat antiquated dress, but as he was drinking with a gang of what looked like off-duty police officers, nobody made any trouble. Remus had been grateful, many times, for the Australian flag and Auror's patch on his shoulder; it smoothed the way in so many troubling situations. 

They lost Jones and Balcock somewhere between arriving at the Rocks and deciding, admittedly fuzzily, that it was time to stop off at the Plucked Emu before returning to the hotel, where most of the Aurors were staying, and where Remus could walk or get a cab back to his boardinghouse. 

"When," Karls asked, waving his bottle at Remus as they finished up in the Plucked Emu, "Are you going to get a real place, Lupin? Stead of a scrubby li'l room?"

"Saving up," Remus replied. "S'not cheap you know. Never had a place of my own."

"What, never?" Snape asked, surprising him. 

"Nup," he said cheerfully. "Well. Lived with m'dad when I was little, and then Hogwarts -- not exactly private. And then, and then..." He screwed up his face slightly. "Slept on James' couch for a while. Couldn't find a job."

"James Potter?" Karls asked. Remus nodded. "You knew 'em, didn't you?"

"We both did," Remus said, indicating Snape. 

"Much to my regret," Snape growled. 

"Mustn't speak ill of the dead," Remus chided.

"Why mustn't we? I think there's a great deal to be said for speaking ill of the dead. They can't fight back, for one," Snape replied tartly. 

"James Potter was -- "

"An absolute prat, and didn't deserve Lily Evans."

"Right, right," Remus agreed. "But. He tried. After a while he tried. Say what you like, he tried. And that's the thing about Sirius, y'see..."

"Sirius Black?" asked one of the other Aurors. "Chap who's in Azkaban?" 

Remus waved a hand irritably. "Yes, that's the one. Should have suspected him. He never even tried. Bloody hated you, you know," he added, to Snape.

"I was aware of that."

"Not like that's a mark against you, mind," Karls put in. "Bloodthirsty Death Eater, after all."

Remus saw Snape's hand drift up his left arm, fingers wrapping around the spot where his Dark Mark would have been. _Ah yes, Severus; you might know I'm a werewolf but I know what you were, too, and you chose to be one..._

_And in the end, what does it matter? You're a teacher who never talks and I'm a copper who never feels._

No wonder Dumbledore had thought they were alike.

They left the Emu around closing time, wending their way back through a couple of alleys and side-streets until they found themselves in front of the hotel again, having lost a few more people on the way. Hobson straightened up, with the help of Karls' shoulder, and turned to face them.

"Present for inspection!" she said, and the rest of them fell into some kind of order, grinning and nudging one another when they started to lean. Snape, Remus saw, was standing quite straight; he hadn't been drinking as much as the others, though he'd certainly had his share. Remus, remembering his Academy training, got himself fully upright, balancing precariously. 

"Right then," Hobson said. "A lowlier bunch of scum never patrolled the streets of this blasted city. But you're my scum," she added, "And by god you're at least properly trained scum. Dismissed!"

Remus stumbled into Snape, and decided he might as well follow the rest of them into the hotel; he could sober up a bit before going home. He didn't have to be on duty again tomorrow until noon, anyway; there weren't any lectures in the morning, and an auxiliary shift was doing general duty. 

Somewhat supporting each other, they stopped in the lobby while Snape fumbled for his key, leaning against a handy wall. Remus watched his hands search his trouser pockets, then the pockets of his robe before they found the small brass key and hotel tag. Without thinking, he touched his left hand. Snape looked up at him, sharply.

"I am sorry," he said slowly, fingers exploring Snape's outspread palm, "For what James and Sirius did to you."

"Hardly heartening," the other man replied, gripping his key tightly. 

"Too little too late," Remus agreed. "But I am. And was, too. Then. Sorry, I mean. We were stupid."

"That I did know."

Remus saw a flash of pain behind Snape's dark eyes, quickly shielded. He pressed his thumb to the centre of Snape's palm, soothingly.

"They can't ask you to forgive them," he murmured. This was dangerous business, but they were, after all, somewhat alike...and it had been a long time, he suspected, since either of them had trusted anyone enough to get close. Mutual distrust was almost as good, he decided, swaying forward. "But I can."

For a split second he felt Snape respond, felt his head incline to meet Remus' as they kissed in the dark, empty lobby; it was a fantastically bad idea to be doing this, especially in public, but what the hell, it wasn't like the man wasn't going back to England day after tomorrow, and he really did feel he ought to show how very sorry he was...

Then Snape's hand, still somewhat entangled in his own, moved suddenly and swiftly, hitting him flat in the centre of his chest and shoving him backwards, off balance, until he caught himself on the wall.

"Do not think," Snape said, raising his hand again to wipe his mouth almost delicately, "that you are in any way welcome to take liberties with my privacy or my person."

Remus simply watched, wordless, as he turned on his heel and vanished up the stairs, into the gloom of the hotel.

"Bugger," he said, with feeling, and closed his eyes. There was no way he could have screwed that up more if he'd tried.

"Lupin?"

Damn. Maybe there was a way.

He opened his eyes and saw a silhouetted figure standing nearby. Too short to be Snape, returning; he recognised that imposing stance and those sharp eyes...

"Professor McGonagall," he said, managing not to slur too much. "You're up rather late."

"So are you," she said, touching his elbow. "Are you quite all right? I saw Severus shove you into the wall..."

He straightened. "Fine, thanks. Bit of a misunderstanding, that's all. Do you need something?"

She smiled. "I was going to the bar to see if they had any tea. I don't sleep well in unfamiliar rooms. Join me, if you like."

Tea sounded quite good, and although the idea of attempting to appear sober in front of his former professor did not, he was hardly in a position to resist. He followed her through the lobby and into the bar, where a few lamps were still lit; she asked for tea from the bored man behind the counter, and brought it back to the table he was sitting at, head resting on his arms.

"I had hoped to have time to speak with you, though not at one in the morning," she said, as she put a teabag into the pot and spooned sugar into her teacup. "I was surprised to see you in Australia. Perhaps I shouldn't have been; Dumbledore mentioned your letters, back when you still wrote to him, and you didn't seem very interested in putting down roots anywhere."

"Nowhere was much interested in having me," he replied, waving away her offer of sugar. 

"You had a good job there, though -- I recall you were teaching?"

"For a little while."

"Why did you leave?"

He considered telling her he simply hadn't liked teaching, but he'd loved teaching, and besides, she knew what he was. "They found out about me, and marched me out of the school at riflepoint."

"Oh."

"So I came here."

She nodded. "I wish we'd known. Dumbledore wanted to write you. He spoke to your father, but Mr. Lupin seemed of the opinion that you would probably rather not hear from us."

Remus shrugged. "Wouldn't have mattered, either way. Didn't think you'd be interested."

"There was an invitation for you, actually; you've missed your ten-year reunion."

Remus ducked his head. "Probably just as well. Can't have been many Gryffindors there; most died fighting Voldemort."

She flinched at the name, just slightly. "Yes; there weren't any Gryffindor boys, and Severus is the only Slytherin boy. He chose not to attend."

"None at all? What about Michael and Hyperion, they were Gryffindors..."

"Michael was killed in a Muggle auto accident, two years after the Potters died. I'm surprised you hadn't heard. Hyperion committed suicide not long after. His family chose not to publicise the fact."

Remus stared at her, stunned. "Surely not...I knew him. He was in the Order. He was a good man."

Minerva nodded. "I think old memories finally caught up with him. He left a note saying he didn't much like the world anymore. One more reason Dumbledore wanted to know where you were. Do you realise, Remus," she said, pouring the tea, "That you and Severus are veterans of a war? You weren't just boys playing at games. You were soldiers, and no-one ever told you that."

"Nothing to be done about it," he answered. "Can't change what's happened." 

She gave him a shrewd look, and he drank his tea to hide anything his face might be betraying. 

"At any rate, there aren't many students to return to Hogwarts, even if they wanted to," she continued. "But there are children coming. The classes are larger every year. James' son will be attending, you know, in another three years, as will Frank Longbottom's."

"How are Frank and Alice?"

"Much the same," she said, and they were both silent for a moment. 

"Tragic," he murmured. "Better off dead, one would think."

"Perhaps. But I'm sure you know how proud their family is, being an Auror yourself now."

"It's just a job, really," he answered. "I mean. There's nothing particularly noble about it, from where I sit. Something to put food on the table."

"A very Gryffindor sentiment."

He smiled at her, tiredly. 

"I should be off," he said. "Thank you for the tea."

"I don't know that I'll see you again before we leave -- I'm lecturing all afternoon tomorrow. Look after yourself, Remus," she said, as he stood to go. 

"I always do," he replied. "Do tell Severus I'm sorry, if you see him. I'm sure that's not what he wants to hear, but tell him all the same."

When he left the table, he felt more than sober; he walked slowly out of the hotel, woke up a cab-driver who was sleeping in his car, and gave the address of his boarding-house. He wondered if he'd be able to sleep, considering the news he'd had and the memories it brought up. Frank and Alice without change -- not to mention the deaths of the only other two Gryffindors in his year, after James and Sirius and Peter. Poor old Hyperion, he'd deserved better. And Michael certainly deserved better than getting run down by some mad Muggle driver.

Which meant that now, of all the Gryffindors in the class of 1976, he and Sirius were the only ones still living. If you could call it that.

Still, when he reached his bed, he barely managed to undress before he fell asleep; it was fitful and restless, but it gave him enough energy to face the following day. 

He saw neither McGonagall nor Snape before they left, and he wasn't sure whether to be sorry or grateful. He gave Dumbledore his address, if he wanted to write to him, but smiled and politely turned down the offer to come visit Hogwarts at some point in the near future. Hearing about the others had been bad enough. He had no wish to relive his school days or the days immediately following; he spent enough time there in his nightmares.

***

Trailing a handful of students around a conference was perhaps the easiest job of his career as an Auror; jump-out assignments were dangerous things, and more than once his durability probably saved his life. He'd been shot by Muggles, hexed and cursed by troublemaking witches and wizards, and bitten by dogs. Occasionally it left him sore for a day or two, but it rarely put him out of action for even as long as his full-moon nights did. 

They lost two men in February, and another in April of that year; worrying rumours began to trickle in about a revival of the old Death Eaters, though it had never been a very large organisation in Australia to begin with. Remus, however, remembered the sheer power of numbers they'd had in Britain, and began walking home while it was still light out and double-locking his door at night. 

They actually encountered a Death Eater in late June, though not, apparently, out on business; merely drunk and disorderly who got out of hand and happened to have a Dark Mark on his left arm. Some of the local Muggle papers were running stories about a strange satanic cult, and the Wizarding ones were nearly hysterical at the idea of an upswing in any sort of activity related to You-Know-Who. But when the rumours appeared to be false and two months passed without any further mention by either the Aurors or the general public, media paranoia -- and Remus' -- began to fade.

He still felt especially vulnerable during the full moons, and began to look at actual houses in the area around headquarters; he had nearly enough saved for a down-payment. A house would be nice. Especially since Hobson had started walking home with him sometimes, though his flat was northwest of hers and quite out of her way. He'd wanted to invite her up, but there wasn't much hospitality to offer in a boarding-house room. Instead he'd begun asking her to dinner, once in a while. He liked Hobson. She understood. Only other Aurors ever really understood. She liked him, too; after dinner, once, she'd kissed him in the doorway to his building, pressing quickly against him, hips and breasts warm under her uniform, molding to his body. 

But he wasn't thinking of Hobson that evening, as he locked himself in the closet and waited for the moon to rise. The wolf didn't think, hardly, and certainly not about Hobson. 

Her voice was there, though, when he came out of his dawn Change; he'd snatched perhaps an hour of exhausted, bleeding sleep, too tired to dress his wounds (the bloodstains would never come out of the floor, but the security deposit hadn't been that much) before curling up and willing the world away.

Now the world was back, insistently, in the form of a loud, full voice in his rooms.

"Lupin? Lupin! Answer your page!"

Damn, it was Hobson -- 

No, just Hobson's voice, he said to himself, as the closet door swung open and he staggered half-upright into the room, fingers of one hand groping for bandages while the other picked up the small pyramid-shaped block Aurors used to communicate with each other. He held it flat on his palm and felt it sink into the skin ever so slightly.

"I'm here, Hobson," he rasped. 

"About time!" Her voice jarred in his ears, and he winced, tearing a strip of bandage with his teeth and adhering it magically to the claw marks on his forearm. "You must've been dead asleep, I've been paging you for twenty minutes!"

"Rough night," Remus murmured, sinking onto the bed as he wrapped more bandages around the deep gashes on his lower legs, where his hindquarter claws had caught against each other in his desperate attempts to break free of the closet prison. 

"Listen, we've got a big problem and Karls said to call you. He wants you to meet him at the Sydney Harbour Preserve," Hobson continued. "You've got forty minutes."

"The Preserve?" Remus asked. "Listen. Hobson, you know I called in sick, I'm not even walking around very well."

"Suck it up, England, duty calls. Sydney Harbour Preserve, forty minutes. Thirty-nine, now."

"Yes ma'am," he sighed, and dropped the pyramid back onto the table. His bones protested every movement and his joints creaked; the throbbing of the cuts on his arms and legs, across his torso, and -- he lifted a hand -- yes, a few on his neck this time, those were nothing in comparison to the all-consuming exhaustion of the body, and in some ways of the mind. His hips hurt when he walked, and his shoulders when he bent. 

He managed to get himself bandaged and dressed, grateful for the long sleeves of the Auror uniform. He didn't dare Apparate, but he managed to get hold of an operator at headquarters who directed him to the closest floo to the Preserve. He was only five minutes late when he arrived at the entrance to the park on foot, gritting his teeth against the pain.

Hobson, Jones, and Karls were waiting for him, and he rubbed his forehead as Karls greeted him quietly.

"What's going on?" he asked, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Briefing time. We've got to move quickly, this one'll get away from us otherwise," Karls said briskly. "Walk and talk."

They dutifully followed him into the Preserve, under a thick green canopy that shaded the dusty hiking trail. Karls spoke as they moved, rather like a tour guide leading a field trip.

"The Sydney Magical Zoo is shielded in the Preserve," Karls said, keen eyes roaming the underbrush. "There's an entrance near the big fallen tree -- just up there," he said, pointing. Hobson and Jones followed his gesture with their eyes; Remus merely kept walking, head bent, trying to put one foot in front of the other. "There's been an escape from the zoo, and death involved in it." He took a deep breath. "It's a werewolf."

Remus, who had long ago learned subtlety, did not jerk his head up, or tense, or gasp. 

"We have a werewolf in a zoo?" was all he asked, vague horror breaking through the haze of exhaustion. 

"Not most of the time," Karls replied, making his way closer to the fallen tree. "He's actually quite a famous attraction. Sydney Magical Zoo is one of only three in the entire world that can boast a live, captive werewolf. It's terribly difficult to get one."

"Can't imagine why," Remus murmured, before the impact of the statement truly hit him. "Captive? They keep him caged?"

"Only during the full moon. The rest of the time the cage is open to visitors. There's a little educational film, I believe," Karls said thoughtfully, laying one hand on the fallen tree. "The afternoon of the full moon he shows up to the cage, they lock him in, and he transforms. The zoo stays open extra-late so people can come see him change. Next morning, they carry him out on a stretcher, see to his wounds, and send him on his way."

Remus felt as though all three of them could see through his jacket and uniform shirt, to the broad swathes of bandages underneath. 

"You look hungover," Jones muttered to him.

"I'm dying of pneumonia," he muttered back, and she grinned.

"Last night, one of the bars on his cage snapped, and he got out through it. There's a zoo security guard dead, and another one who's going to have to spend the rest of his full moons in a similar situation to our assailant."

Remus kept his face perfectly blank, though Karls was looking right at him. "Lupin, you've had some experience with werewolves in America, else we wouldn't have called you in. I've already got two teams sweeping the park, but it's a big preserve and it's not likely we're going to just stumble across him. Hobson, Jones, the two of you should fan out within the zoo, make sure none of the animals look like they've been mauled. Lupin, you're with me."

Remus nodded and followed Karls through the hidden entrance, Jones and Hobson reporting to a zoo official once they were inside.

"Ugly business," Karls said, as they walked briskly towards the werewolf enclosure. Some zoo designer had thought it would be cute to put little wolf tracks leading up to it. Remus felt he might retch. "I'm really sorry, Lupin, but you know -- "

"If he's killed someone we have to catch him," Remus answered shortly. "What do you need?"

Karls nodded. "He'll have changed back by now. We've got photographs..." he passed one across as they stopped at the entrance to the cage. One of the bars was bent outward, and another was gone entirely. "He wears a mask when he does the Change, so that people don't know who he is, but the Zoo keeps employment records of everyone who works for them. That's Lacon Chaney. Earns the rest of his living, what the Zoo doesn't pay him for this dog and pony show, as a croupier at a Muggle casino."

Remus looked down at the man curiously. In the photograph, he smiled and waved at the camera. A perfectly normal human being.

Once.

"I need to know everything you know and I need to know it now," Karls continued. "Where you think he'd go, what you think he'll do. I know you've studied this."

Remus bowed his head, acknowledging that it was true.

"I'm told," he said cautiously, "That for a werewolf, turning or killing a human being is...well, it's supposed to be euphoria-inducing. It can also lead to a delay in Change -- he might still be out there as a wolf, especially since he got two people..."

Karls touched his arm, as he breathed deeply, fighting nausea. 

"I'm sorry, this close after -- "

"I wouldn't have called you, except..." Karls looked vaguely distressed, and Remus shook his head.

"No, if he's loose we have to catch him -- and if he's Changed back, he may try something desperate," Remus whispered. Karls frowned. "If I found out I'd killed someone...I'd take my own life before anyone else tried to take it from me."

"Can you track him at all? Is there a scent you could pick up?"

"Not in this shape," Remus said with a wan smile. "That's where he got the guards?" he asked, pointing to a taped-off area, and Karls nodded. He walked forward, inspecting it, and then stepped past the tape, standing carefully away from the bloodstains on the pavement. 

He straightened his shoulders, lifted his chin, closed his eyes for a minute, and then opened them again, looking around himself with the eyes of a desperate animal. 

He remembered full moon nights with James and Peter and Sirius, remembered being the wolf; the frenzy that took hold when the wolf encountered a human, and the two near misses, not counting Snape, that only James and Sirius had saved him from, with horns and teeth and sharp hooves kicking him away from his target. 

If he were that creature again, crazed by blood and the orgasmic sensation that a werewolf supposedly experienced after a kill...

Too many human smells, too many animals. He would want to find a private place to lick the blood from his fur, somewhere to roll in crushed grass and leaves to hide his own scent. 

He sniffed. Karls, nearby, smelling of sweat and anxiety; blood from the ground; animal dung and musk...

And a fresh green scent borne in by the wind, from the river that ran through the zoo. 

"The water," he said. "He'll go to the water."

Karls followed him as he made his way past a few enclosures, following the signs to a small wooden footbridge. Cool water after the panic of escape; he'd leap off here and let it carry him downriver.

"Where does the water lead?" he asked, aware his voice was still raspy and almost able to feel the dark smudges under his eyes.

"Back out into the Muggle area of the preserve -- should I call Hobson?"

"Yes," Remus said, leaning heavily on the rail of the footbridge -- a few inches from the deep score marks that told him his guess was correct. "I definitely think you should call Hobson."

Karls nodded and Remus continued to stare at the water, listening to their conversation. When they were done speaking, Karls touched his shoulder lightly and pressed something cold into his hand.

"Standard issue on this one," he said quietly. "I know werewolves aren't hurt by much, but other werewolves -- "

"It's a pistol," Remus said, shocked. 

"With a silver bullet," Karls answered, and Remus could feel the silver even through the cold steel, an unpleasant warmth in his palm. "He may go for any one of us. The agents out in the preserve already have rifles, and Hobson and Jones have pistols like that one. One shot each. I don't want anyone else dying."

Remus looked up into the hard, grim lines of Karls' face.

"It may not be up to you," he said softly.

***

By the time they reached the entrance to the zoo again, Remus was ready to collapse; Karls put a shoulder under one of his arms and half-supported him back out onto the footpath, walking both of them slowly and warily down to the river. There were other Aurors there, patrolling with a couple of in-the-know policemen and some cringing, terrified scent-hounds. Remus kept well away from them; dogs knew what he was. (He suspected that cats could also tell, but simply didn't care.)

"You look like you already got in a fight with a werewolf," said a deep voice, and Remus saw Anson approaching, rifle slung carelessly over his shoulder. "Guess you weren't kidding when you called in sick."

"Sorry, sir," Remus said, releasing Karls, standing only slightly unsteadily. 

"Karls here says you've tangled with these beasties before? Right nuisance," Anson said, glancing around. "Course, it's only what you get when you put one up on display. They're not museum pieces, for Merlin's sake."

"No," Remus muttered, seating himself on a convenient rock at the river's edge. "Suppose not."

"Lupin says he'll follow the river, and I believe him," Karls told Anson, who nodded. "Don't reckon he's gone too far; he'll want to regroup. Far as we can tell he's naked, so if he leaves the preserve he'll make a splash fairly quickly," he added sardonically. 

"Hopefully he found somewhere to hide. A rational man can be told to surrender," Anson replied. "Oi! Those dogs helping at all?"

One of the Muggle policemen looked up, haplessly. "Whatever it is you're chasing, sir, it's got the dogs frightened. They won't track," he added, as the large German Shepherd on the other end of his lead tried to pull him off his feet, in a path perpendicular from the river. 

"Fine, get them out of here then, they'll only be in the way," Anson snapped. "Listen up, you shower! Split off. I want two men on each bank going north and south. If you see actual signs of him, which do not include half-crushed leaves or anything less corporeal than good old fashioned spoor, sing out. No use sending a team in the wrong direction," he added. "Lupin, Karls, coordinate from here."

Remus had only been half-listening, but as he tried to turn his head to acknowledge Anson's order, something out of the corner of his eye made him pause. He could hear the others, already dispersing, and the crack of a branch under Karls' foot as the other man moved. Remus scanned the patch of undergrowth on the other side of the river -- narrow at this point, barely as wide as a small creek -- for what had caught his eye. A shadow where a shadow shouldn't be. 

"Anson, stop them," he said, watching the dark patch move, trying to identify shape from shade. 

"What?"

"Call them back," Remus said, just as smoothly. He couldn't see them behind him, and his whole attention was focused on that moving, shifting trick of the light, which resolved itself into a head of auburn hair. Karls swore softly under his breath.

"He's human," Anson said. 

"There's something positive," Karls muttered sarcastically. Remus was willing the man to raise his head, lift just a little so that they could see his eyes. Now that he could follow the shape of the head and neck, he could imagine the body as well. Moving upriver from them, cautiously, but not with human caution; with the grace and care of an animal quietly fleeing danger.

"Lacon," Anson called, and the man's head did snap up them. 

Remus stared.

His face was human, more-or-less; a certain sleekness across the cheekbones indicated the Change wasn't complete. Remus had never seen a half-Changed werewolf; had never seen a Changed one at all, for that matter, except in photographs. Changed werewolves were nightmare visions, like an animal with brain damage, goaded to madness. Remus could see the same look in this man's eyes. Red-rimmed eyes, with blue-white pupils. 

"Lacon, we're here to help you," Anson continued. Remus heard the other Aurors, the ones who'd been within earshot, reassembling behind them. He moved his hand slowly towards the pistol he'd set next to his foot. "Lacon," Anson repeated, "come across the river. You know you're going to have to."

Remus knew it was a mistake the minute Anson invited him across the river. He ducked for the pistol and tried, at the same time, to throw himself backwards with only about half the mobility he normally had. He just managed to get hold of the weapon and was coming back up when he saw Lacon coil and spring easily across the river, muscles standing out painfully tight on his not-quite-human body. He lifted his left arm up to protect himself, and Lacon hit him off-centre. 

Something ripped the flesh of his left hand, just below the palm. He screamed, adrenaline strengthening him enough to roll, to try to pin the half-animal monster that had gouged him with a rock clutched in its right hand. Legs kicked and struggled, and he blocked a knee to the groin with a well-timed hand, trying to control the creature.

"Shoot it!" Anson was roaring in the background. Remus thought he heard Hobson yell his name. They couldn't shoot Lacon, as long as he was underneath Remus, and so he gave up and let himself be rolled -- 

Two shots fired; Lacon didn't even flinch. Instead he licked his lips (all too human lips) and opened his mouth (not at all human teeth) and latched onto Remus' neck, tearing a good three inch strip out of the sinew below his jaw. 

Remus screamed again and thrust him off, saw bloody chin and cheeks as Lacon charged in the same direction he'd been flipped, down on all fours. He was going for Hobson, who was frantically squeezing the trigger on her empty pistol.

There was an explosion so loud Remus thought his eardrums had burst, and a puff of white smoke. Blood spattered across Hobson's red shirt. 

Remus stared. _It really doesn't show the stains,_ said a small rational voice in his head. 

His right arm was still outstretched, pistol clenched tightly in it. He pulled again, experimentally, forgetting that Hobson was now in his direct line of fire. The hammer clicked. Hobson flinched. Empty gun.

Empty gun.

_I shot him._

He dropped his hand and saw Lacon lying in the grass, a bloody, black-edged hole between his shoulder blades. 

His head was too hot. So was his hand. He turned it palm-up to see where the other werewolf's makeshift weapon had gouged a deep slice in his flesh -- already healed, barely even a scar. 

Then he brought his other hand up to his neck, felt wetness and a horrible softness where smooth firm skin ought to be. 

"Did I kill him?" he asked, uncertainly. Karls was kneeling by the body, examining it.

"I think s -- bloody fuck," Karls said, turning to look at him. He skidded across from the body on the ground to where Remus knelt, pulling his hand away from his neck. "Fuck, fuck, fuck. Jones, call a Healer! Now!"

Remus realised it hurt to move his head, hurt to keep it upright, and he rested it on Karls' shoulder while the other man pressed painfully against his neck. "Ow," he complained.

"You'll be okay, Lupin," Karls said. "He missed your vein. You breathing all right?"

Remus tried to say that Karls was hurting him, but a sudden wave of nausea passed through his body with almost physical force, and that was the last he knew for a while.

***

He woke to the antiseptic smell of hospital and the white ceiling of same; also to absolute silence, so overwhelming that he wasn't sure, for a moment, if he actually had woken at all. He closed his eyes and opened them again; they felt gritty and dry. 

An ache began to make itself known in his shoulder; a soreness that felt like the last time he'd been shot, when his body had healed up around the bullethole and for two days he'd been unable to move properly while the muscles recovered. The ache spread up his neck and across his jaw, but didn't seem to affect him anywhere else.

He lifted a hand slowly, fingers exploring his shoulder even as he probed his memory for what had happened.

No, it had to have been a dream. He must have dreamed it after the Change, and perhaps he'd hurt himself so badly this time that someone had come looking for him, and that was why he was here. He had not been attacked and savaged by another werewolf, not in front of Anson and Jones and Hobson -- he hadn't shot a man. He hadn't. He wasn't a murderer. He'd never killed anyone. Not even as an officer of the law. 

His fingers slid over his neck, finding the pulse, resting for a moment on the solid, even beat of blood under his skin. A little lower -- 

Not a dream, then, he thought, as he found a jagged-edged indentation in his neck. It didn't hurt to probe it, though pressure made the ache worse. It felt as though it was almost healed, and what he was exploring with his fingertips was probably a scar. 

He closed his eyes. Werewolves healed fast, but not from bites by other werewolves. If the bite was already healed, that meant he'd been in this hospital, unconscious, for a while. 

His joints protested tiredly when he pushed himself up, and pain flared in his head; he pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, breathing deeply until it subsided somewhat. Then he let his hands fall, and looked around him.

It was a small white room, typical-hospital style; door with a window in it, cart with spare sheets and other supplies in the corner, piles of the white flannel hospital pyjamas he was wearing. There was a bank of windows along one side, and sunlight streamed in through them. He could see downtown Sydney through the window; he must be at the Sydney Hospital for Wizardry. 

He tested the muscles in his legs, clenching each one slowly to make sure they still worked; touched each finger on his left hand to his left thumb, then did the same to his right. Forearms, biceps, shoulders -- pain rippled dully over his neck and down his back when he tensed the muscles there. Everything seemed to be working -- if not perfectly, then at least protestingly.

He felt as if he'd forgotten something important for a second, and then it came back to him again. He'd shot that man. A black-edged hole between the shoulder blades, and before Karls had pressed a hand to Remus' neck he'd said something about it not being -- him not being -- 

He'd killed Lacon Chaney. A person. He'd killed a person. 

He never thought he'd do it while he was on two legs. 

He hoped he'd never do it even on four. 

He wanted to lean back on the bed again and curl up into a ball, shut out the world, but he couldn't; he had to know too many things. Who had seen Lacon bite him, who knew he was a werewolf, whether he still had a job, how long he'd been here, whether Lacon had survived.

He moved slowly, sliding his legs out of the bed and testing his weight on them before standing, hands outspread in case the blood rushing to his head made him dizzy. When a mild wave of nausea subsided, he took a step forward; having decided he could walk again, he went to the door and opened it, sidling outside. 

An Auror, a man he recognised from the training class after his, was sleeping sitting-up, outside his door. A guard? To keep him in, or to keep someone else out?

There was some sort of medical station a few doors down. He walked there slowly, feeling the cold tile smooth and pleasant under his bare feet. The mediwitch behind it looked up, and her eyes widened in surprise.

"Excuse me," he said, almost shyly, voice slightly hoarse. "My name is Lupin, I'm in the private room down the hall -- "

He was cut off by a buzz as she pressed her wand against a panel and spoke. "Healer Carver to second floor, please, your coma patient is awake."

"Coma?" Remus asked, slightly frightened now. "I'm sorry, I just woke up and no-one was..."

He trailed off as she circled the station and grabbed his elbow, pulling him back towards the room. "You're not supposed to be out of quarantine," she snapped, putting an entirely unnecessary shoulder under his arm. 

"Quarantine? But I'm not sick -- " he paused. Memories washed over him. Quarantine in a hospital, even though it was nearly a day before they could get him to one -- a bandage on his thigh, Healers in beaky white masks just in case, because the werewolf gene could mutate and become airborne-contagious right after a bite...

He'd been six the last time he'd been in quarantine. 

Because he'd been bitten by a werewolf.

He let himself be guided back onto the bed. He sat limply while she took his pulse and temperature, casting a fussy disinfectant spell after she did so. There was a rap at the door, and a man in the unfortunately-familiar white beaked mask entered.

"Walked out to my station, cool as you please," the witch muttered to the healer, who nodded and gestured her through the door, taking a chart from the end of Lupin's bed. 

"Hold still, please," he said, and his wand hovered in the vicinity of Remus' neck, glowing faintly yellow. After a second of this, the man nodded, and pulled off the mask.

"I doubted you were contagious, but it never hurts to be sure," he said with a smile. "I'm Healer Carver, Apollo Carver. A pleasure to meet you, finally."

Remus regarded the outstretched hand, then shook it slowly. 

"Do you know why you're here?" Carver continued, as he repeated the mediwitch's actions, taking Remus' pulse and shining the lit end of his wand in his eyes.

"I was in a fight in the Preserve..." Remus said hesitantly. "I was attacked...he's dead, isn't he?"

The Healer's eyes cut away.

"I don't suppose, being an Auror, you subscribe much to the theory of coddling one's patients," he said. "Yes. Lacon Chaney bled out before the Healers even arrived. Your bullet passed his spine, damaging the spinal cord, and by the time it had reached the heart it was doing enough damage that it pretty much destroyed it."

"I didn't mean -- " Remus said, but Carver held up a hand.

"There's already been an inquest, as much as there could be without your testimony," he said. "He would have killed the woman..."

"Hobson?"

"Yes, that's her name...someone had to shoot him. Out of personal curiousity..." Carver leaned closer, his voice low and confidential, "Was it dumb luck or good aim?"

Remus ducked his head, though it hurt to do so. "I don't know," he answered, just as quietly. "It happened too fast."

Carver nodded. "Well, at any rate, your vital signs look good and you seem to be alert. What's the last thing you remember?"

"Passing out after Karls got hold of me."

"Probably a good sign. You've been unconscious since then. We've had you here about three weeks."

Remus tensed. "Three weeks?"

"Yes -- you lost a lot of blood, and it's tricky, dealing with werewolf physiology," Carver said gravely. "Admittedly, I didn't expect you'd be unconscious quite this long, but your body -- really, the way it works is quite remarkable, and we thought it best to leave it alone. We've been feeding you via potion infusions, so you're going to have to get back on solid foods slowly, but otherwise..." he smiled a little. "You seem like a healthy young man."

Remus nodded, mulling it over. Carver bit his lip.

"You were a werewolf already, weren't you?" he asked. Remus looked up. "The scars. One of your friends said you told them it was...some kind of torture when you were younger, but those are claw-marks, aren't they?"

"Does everyone know?"

"I haven't told anyone. Your story seems to be passing for truth, and I only noticed because..." Carver shrugged. "Well, I'm trained to, aren't I. Listen, it's all right. We have a confidentiality clause. It hasn't even been in the papers, the bite I mean -- your superiors put it out that you'd been nearly bludgeoned to death with a rock. You've been quite the local hero, this past month. That's what the arse of a guard on your door is supposed to be doing, keeping the scandalmongers out."

"Thank you."

"Part of the service." Carver made a notation on the chart and hung it on the end of the bed. "Now, I can answer your questions, or I can call anyone you like; your superiors have been notified and are probably on their way. I should notify the newspapers that you're awake, but I can probably get away with keeping it quiet until tonight."

"You can tell them," Remus heard his own voice saying, distantly. "They'll find out sooner or later anyway. The inquest..."

Carver nodded.

"Did Chaney have any...family? Children?"

The Healer looked thoughtful. "Yes, I believe he was married. No children. He had a brother who was at the inquest, with his wife."

"Oh." Remus stared at his hands. "I don't, you know. Not here, anyway. My father's in England. I live nearly...entirely...alone."

Carver watched him, warily.

"He had a family," Remus continued. "A house?"

"I believe so, yes...Mr. Lupin, I know you have no idea who I am, but..." Carver spread his hands. "You're an Auror. It's your job to protect people. He was a danger to himself and everyone around him. He killed a man, far more coldbloodedly than you killed him."

Remus drew his knees up against his chest, resting his bare feet on the edge of the bed.

"But I still killed him," he whispered.


	4. Chapter 4

Two weeks later, Remus Lupin was back in Great Britain. 

They couldn't keep him at his job, of course. Deepest regrets, Lupin; sad to see you go; sorry about the pension, but we can't pension non-citizens. Anson had said all the right things. Dark Creatures weren't allowed in government jobs, after all, and while Karls alone had been able to keep the secret, Karls plus Anson, Hobson, and a handful of junior Aurors...well, that was a different story.

Karls had always told him he'd have to take a fall if he was caught. It was a very graceful way to fall, Remus reflected. The outside world was told he was suffering lingering injury, and returning to Great Britain for treatment; the inner circle who'd seen him get bitten thought he'd only just been infected, and were more sympathetic than they might have been had he revealed himself to be not only a werewolf but a liar as well. 

They hadn't owled his father; no-one had thought he had any family at all. When the news of the attack reached England, it was a back-page column in "News of the World", and he wasn't mentioned by name. He sat down to try to write a carefully-worded explanation of what had gone on, but nothing came.

He'd have to leave anyway. He might as well go in person. 

He didn't want a goodbye party and didn't have enough close friends to warrant it; he didn't even tell his colleagues he was leaving. He picked up his last paycheck and his discharge paperwork, left his badge on his desk, and vanished. It was just a place, after all, and just a job to pay the bills, as he'd told Professor McGonagall. 

He'd liked Sydney, but no more than he'd liked Alabama. Nice places; easy to stay, and not too difficult to leave. He left his books behind again, as a gift to whoever next rented the poky little boarding-house room with the claw-marks gouged into its closet walls. He'd spent one last full moon, this one under a doctor's care at the hospital; they'd tried to send him through the counseling program, but he simply stopped showing up for it. 

He paid the exorbitant rate for a floo portal back to England, gripped his luggage tightly -- without all but his most beloved books it was just a satchel full of paperwork and his rucksack full of clothing -- and found himself stumbling out of a fireplace in the pub that bordered on Diagon Alley. The Leaky Somethingorother. Flagon? 

England. This was England. His home. This was Diagon Alley, where he'd visited and bought school things as a child. 

He'd changed his money before leaving. He was unused to handling Galleons and Sickles, unsure of the exchange rate, but he plunked two Galleons down for a room over the pub, and the barkeep tossed him a key. His coat still had the Australian flag on one shoulder, above the Auror's insignia, and he had a few odd looks as he passed through the dim room and climbed the stairs. Perhaps they were staring also at the chunk missing from his neck -- he'd have to buy some high-collared shirts -- or the two parallel lines across his face. 

He'd felt that one. He'd been changing back, this past time, and had felt claws rake down his face, even as they became fingers. He hadn't bothered to dress them carefully. What did it matter? Why bother to hide them anymore?

His room overlooked Diagon Alley and he leaned on the windowsill for a while, gazing down on the evening crowds. It was eight o'clock at night in London, England; six in the morning in Sydney, New South Wales. 

_I've been living a day ahead of myself,_ he thought, almost whimsically. He found a handful of coins in his coat pocket and descended again, into Diagon Alley itself. It was pleasant here in the late summer; in Australia it was wintertime. With his coat left behind in his room, he was just a man in black trousers and a red shirt; not an Auror, not a werewolf. He'd felt this way in Sydney at first, as well. Perhaps the trick was to never get to know anyone, ever, and then you never were noticed, and then you would be left alone. And then you would be happy.

He didn't intend to stay long, just to sleep and recover from the time-difference before he moved on from here, too. Still, it was good to dawdle up the sidewalk, having no responsibility. Hogwarts was starting soon; even if he hadn't known it always began on the first of September, the hordes of children in new robes, followed by parents carrying books, would have told him. Perhaps he should just pass through the barrier to platform 9 3/4, climb onto the train, and ride to Hogwarts with the children. Dumbledore would be surprised.

Dumbledore would probably be disappointed. He nearly always had been, when it came to Remus. Endangering the students by blatantly being a werewolf in their presence. 

He saw that dragon-mad boy, Charlie Weasley, passing with his parents and a gaggle of likewise redheaded youngsters. Charlie was busy talking to one of the younger ones and didn't notice Remus, who hurried away just in case there was the chance he might. 

It was difficult to sleep, but he managed it at last, and when he woke in the morning the sun was already well up in the sky.

He bought a train ticket, one-way, and prayed that when he reached the right train stop, he'd remember the way home. 

***

Rufus Lupin -- so named because all the males in the Lupin line took ones beginning with the letter R -- was doing the dishes when someone knocked on the back door. Probably a salesman; out here even the men who went door-to-door hawking encyclopedias or what-have-you knew to come to the back door instead of the front. None of the farmhands would knock; none of them had any reason to come to the farmhouse once dinner was done with at any rate.

He left the pot he was washing to soak and ducked into the cool, dim hallway. He could hear the thump of a package hitting the wooden porch that the back door let onto, then just expectant silence.

He opened the door with a smile and a pre-prepared speech about how he couldn't afford anything anyone cared to be selling, but if they wanted a cup of tea he'd be happy to --

A tall, painfully thin man stood on the porch. He had lines in his face that shouldn't be there, and two mostly-healed scars stretching from his left eyebrow across to his right cheek. His hair was threaded with a few fine hints of grey, and he wore what looked almost like a uniform, with the collar secured tightly at his throat.

"Hi, Dad," the man said, and Rufus blinked. 

"Remus?" he asked softly. The stranger nodded. 

He hadn't seen his son in nearly nine years. Remus was never much one for sending photographs. 

"I'm sorry I didn't owl first," the stranger said. "I just wanted to come home."

Rufus looked him up and down once more, and then at the rucksack resting on the porch, the satchel clutched in his hand. 

"Your things?" he asked. Remus -- yes, he could see the shape of his son's face in the gaunt cheeks -- nodded again. "Best bring them in, then."

He turned and led the way into the house, catching a hint of a relieved smile as his son gathered up his two pathetic items of luggage and carried them inside. Remus hated silly soppy hellos and goodbyes. 

"Dinner's done, but I'll heat something," Rufus said. "Your room's probably dusty, but it'll sleep well."

"I can clean it," Remus answered, continuing up the stairs.

Rufus had eggs and bacon, ham, fried bread, and tea waiting for him when he came back down. He smiled as the man who was not-quite-yet-his-son-again wolfed down the food with obvious pleasure. 

"Not feeding you right down at that Australian town of yours," he said, as Remus scooped up the fried egg with his bread.

"Haven't eaten all day," Remus replied indistinctly. "Train from London, wanted to hitch from the station but nobody drives anymore, I guess, so I walked."

"Everyone's out working. Harvest in soon," Rufus replied.

"Merlin, that's right -- I'd forgotten."

"You eat up," Rufus ordered, as Remus put his bread down in shock. The boy -- man -- hurriedly picked it up again, and sipped his tea into the bargain. 

"Good crop?" Remus asked. 

"Middling. Sheep and goats'll bring in something. Turn a profit, I think, when all's said and done, which is more than some will this year."

"I can help with the harvest."

Rufus cocked his head. "Staying a while?"

Remus looked stricken. "Oh -- if I can -- I didn't even ask, I just -- "

"It's all right, lad, I wasn't saying you couldn't stay," Rufus assured him. "Just wanting to know if you plan to leave as suddenly, that's all. On leave from the Aurors?"

Remus looked down at his plate. "Sacked, actually."

"Oh yes? Caught you nicking the petty cash, did they?"

That brought a slight smile to his lips. "Not quite. Found out I was a werewolf. Sort of. Long story."

"Time to tell it, whenever you please. Come back for good, then?"

"Maybe," Remus allowed. "They said I needed rest, somewhere away from cities, and I...wanted to come home."

"Rest? Have you been ill?"

"I was hurt." Remus flipped the top button of his collar open nervously, and pulled it to one side. Rufus sucked in his breath. On a stranger it would have been saddening; on his son, the deep, hollow scar was terrifying.

"What did it?" he asked softly.

Remus looked away. "Another werewolf."

"Another one attacked you?"

"Yeah," said his son, with a hint of an Australian accent creeping in.

"What happened?"

"I killed it. Him. I killed him." Remus pushed the egg around on his plate with his fork. "He was about to attack a...friend of mine. So I shot him."

"Lad..." Rufus fumbled for something to say, and satisfied himself with refilling Remus' tea. "You're welcome for as long as you'd like. You know that. Rest if you need it. Feeding-up. Can't promise you much excitement after America and Australia and all that -- "

"I could do with a bit less," Remus said wryly. "I won't be in the way."

It was a statement, not a question, and Rufus smiled.

"I don't reckon you will," he answered. They sat in silence for a while, as Remus slowly ate small bites of the remaining food, more for show than because he was still hungry. Rufus drank in the sight of his son, however weary and hurt he was, wanting to memorise his face before it vanished again. 

"I did wonder when I didn't hear from you for a while," he said finally. "No one owled me to say you were hurt."

"I know. They hadn't your address, and after I woke up..." Remus shrugged. "I hope you didn't worry."

"Not more than I ever do, considering I raised you to care for yourself," Rufus said offhand. "Looks as though you have, more or less."

Remus gave him that same tired smile, old in a way that was frightening to his father, and laid his fork across his plate. 

"Leave it," Rufus ordered. "You look exhausted, lad. Sleep a bit."

Remus seemed too tired to do more than obey, moving as if he were in a slight haze. Rufus watched him climb the stairs, turn instinctively to his old room at the top, and fumble only a second before remembering the knob, unlike most others in the house, turned counter-clockwise. 

He heard shoes drop to the floor and the creak of bedsprings, as he gathered up the plate and tea things, putting them in the sink.

His boy was home. Sickly and hurt, but home. Rufus had seen Remus ill before, and had tended his cuts and bruises from the Change for the five years and six Hogwarts summer holidays of his post-attack childhood. Sick could be treated, hurt healed. He knew a witch in town who'd have a good salve for that scar on his neck. 

He sank down into his chair at the kitchen table again, and closed his eyes.

His boy was home.

***

Remus was still on Australian time, though the day of train travel had helped him towards resetting his internal clock; he woke early, far too early, and lay in his bed, in the room he'd tidied up into a guestroom years before. From here he could see the open closet, with a few boxes of his toys and books in, his old Hogwarts uniforms still hanging there, smelling of mothballs. 

The sun was barely up, and soon enough everyone else would be awake, doing all the sunrise-dictated activities of a working farm. It wasn't a large one, or a very profitable one, but his father loved the land, and his father's magic had always been tied to it. He and his mother had understood that, and anyway Remus had never minded being poor, since it was all he'd ever known. He hadn't thought there was any other way to live, until Hogwarts -- until Sirius and James, who were wealthy, and Peter, who was the utter picture of middle-class suburban England. 

_There's no shame in earning honest living with your hands,_ his father had told him, and while he hadn't -- preferring books, which his parents didn't understand but didn't argue with -- he'd known it was true. He wouldn't have traded the shabby old farmhouse for all Sirius' wealth, if Sirius' family came with it. 

He had no clothes but his one good suit and his Auror uniforms, plus a few threadbare and long-unworn Academy shirts. He didn't want to wear either; he contemplated putting on an old Hogwarts shirt, but that seemed slightly absurd. Just because he'd come home didn't mean he was seventeen again. 

He was twenty-eight years old, and all he had to show for it was a deep scar on his neck, a handful of red shirts, and a set of discharge papers from the Sydney branch of the Australian Aurors.

He put on his uniform trousers and stepped out into the hallway, crossing it to knock on his father's bedroom door.

"Aye!" his father called.

"It's Remus," he said, through the door. "Can I borrow a shirt?"

His father opened the door after a moment, still buckling his belt. "Take your pick," he said, waving towards the bureau. Remus opened the third drawer down, automatically, remembering fetching clothing for his father as a child, and took a pale blue one off the top. 

"Should fit you," his father said critically. "You've broadened in the shoulder a bit, I think. Need some meat on your bones," he added, ignoring the new and old scars that criscrossed his son's torso. Remus was grateful for this; his father -- and mother, when she'd been alive -- had never scolded him for the scars, or commented on them. They were a part of him.

He decided, as he settled the shirt across his shoulders, that if he had to be a werewolf, at least he'd had decent parents who understood the condition, even if they didn't like it.

He wondered what sort of parents Lacon Chaney'd had. Perhaps Lacon hadn't become a werewolf until he was grown. 

"Feels all right," he said, buttoning the shirt in front, smoothing it slightly. "I'll hitch into town tomorrow and buy some of my own."

"Do as you please," his father grunted. "Got a truck now. Wait two days and I'll take you in when I go for food. Got the hands living here, out in the old barn -- they take less pay if you feed 'em, and cooking for myself seemed foolish."

"You bought a truck?" Remus raised his eyebrows. "And you can drive it, and all?"

"Isn't so hard. I'll teach you, if you like. Mad Muggle contraption, but a few charms here and there..." his father tapped the side of his nose. "Long as the anti-muggle-device folks at the Ministry don't catch on, it does no one any harm." 

Remus turned to the mirror that stood in the corner, dusty and slightly shabby, and examined himself. He'd taken after Rufus to begin with, and the shirt might have been his own. What a peculiar thing.

His father stood behind him and straightened the collar a little. "Suits you," he said. 

"As much as anything does," Remus murmured, and his father clapped him on the shoulder, leaving him there in front of the mirror, staring at himself. He couldn't remember the last time he'd actually looked at his own reflection, unless it was to shave or brush his hair -- which hardly needed it, cut as short as it was.

No uniform regulation anymore, he thought. I could grow my hair out again. Don't have to shave if I don't want to. I can pick my own colours to wear. 

He smiled, slightly grimly, and the reflection smiled back at him.

How terrifying.

***

For a few weeks Remus withdrew from the prospect of a life without structure, joining his father silently in the rounds of chores the farm required, meeting the temporary workers who were helping to get the harvest in, discovering things that had changed and the things that hadn't. He re-learned the ancient familiar geography of the family grounds, and no-one disturbed him in his rambles. His father plotted charms to be cast, now that there was another fully-qualified wizard about; the farm was shielded from certain Muggles, mainly the ones interested in levying property tax on it, but the shielding needed renewal every fifteen years or so. Not a difficult task, but one requiring more than a single wizard to complete. He spent almost a week de-stoning one of the unused fields, making the usual tired jokes about growing a rock farm and how the stones bred in the ground, otherwise how would a field de-stoned two years ago need it again already?

Nothing seemed very difficult or very tedious, or very anything; this late in the summer, the world was washed in browns and yellows, and it seemed to Remus as if that was the way his life had gone. Things grew successively less real as time passed; if it continued, perhaps one day he would vanish entirely. In the meantime, he waited out his existence tending sheep and chickens, or repairing the old dry-stone walls with the rocks taken from the empty field. He didn't ride in with his father on the trips in to town, and Rufus didn't ask him to. Rufus, who had spent nearly fifteen years searching for a cure for his son, had ended by becoming resigned to allowing things -- people -- to patch themselves over. 

He used to go through the Change in the old barn, at home, but now the farmhands were living there; instead he climbed down into the basement, unused for years, and had his father lock him in. The next dawn Rufus bandaged his wounds and then went about his chores, returning to bring him breakfast before seeing to the rest of the day's business. 

There was, after all, one structure Remus could never escape, and that was the marking-of-time by the phases of the moon. Remus didn't live in weeks or months, but in precise twenty-eight-day cycles. 

He was well enough, three days after the full moon, to feel restless at being confined, and finally agreed when his father suggested another trip in to town to buy him some shirts of his own, as he was stealing and stretching the shoulders on Rufus'. His father had shown him the truck, a battered second-hand model that ran more on charms than on petrol.

"Got somethin' to tell you," Rufus said, as they passed the main gate of the farm, bumping down the dusty track towards the main, paved road.

"Oh?" Remus asked, gazing out the windscreen.

"To do with town."

"All right."

Rufus took a breath, and Remus glanced at his father. Rufus Lupin was never anxious, and yet...

"Been going into town pretty regular," he said. "Friday nights and all. And Sundays."

"Hadn't noticed," Remus answered indifferently. He had, but he hadn't particularly felt anything one way or the other about it; it was just that he was trained to notice these things, as an Auror. In the back of his mind a footnote had been made: Dad's in town on Monday mornings, Friday nights, and Sundays. 

"There's a shop, see," Rufus continued, as they rolled at a leisurely pace towards town. "Sells maps and old books and things. Paper shop. Mostly books, really," he said, almost to himself. "Trinkets now 'n again. But mostly books."

"I'd like to see it," Remus answered, idly wondering where this was going. 

"You're in a fair way to; it's our first stop," Rufus replied. He was silent, almost expectant for a while, but Remus was in no mood to fish for the reason his father was uncomfortable. Finally, he cleared his throat. "Run by a woman, name of Derwent."

Remus glanced at him. Derwent was one of the larger old Wizarding families; he'd known one or two at school. "Witch, then?"

"Aye. Trades in magical texts, when they're needed. Not much Wizarding business out this way." Rufus cleared his throat again. "Been courtin' her, a bit."

Remus wondered if his father expected him to be angry, or perhaps curious. All he felt was a detached sort of amusement. 

"Don't want you to think I'm not faithful to your mum's memory," Rufus continued. "It's just a man gets lonely and it's been -- "

"Eighteen years," Remus murmured. "It's fine, dad."

Rufus risked a glance at him before turning back to the road. "Thought you ought to know."

"You never wrote about her."

"Never could find the right way to say," Rufus admitted. Remus watched as they began passing houses again, the suburbs of the small town. 

"How long?" Remus asked, voice neutral. 

"Goin' on eight years," Rufus admitted. Remus blinked.

"You've been courting this woman eight years, dad?" he asked, surprised. "Taking things slow, are you?"

His father blushed. "Asked her to marry me twice," he murmured. "Wouldn't have me. Didn't want to live out on a farm, she said. It works for us. She has her shop and I've got the lands. Comes out to dinner on Sundays."

"Where've I been?" Remus asked, smiling.

"Didn't have her come out, did I? Wanted to ease you into it, like."

"I didn't mean to be any kind of -- "

"You aren't," his father said sharply, almost angrily. Remus watched him carefully. "You aren't any kind of. You're my boy. Been sick. Told her that. Family's more important. Only family I got left. Told her so."

"I'm sure she was thrilled," Remus murmured.

"It's no matter," Rufus said firmly. "Shop's on the high street, you're not obliged to meet her if you'd rather not. Thought we might have her for dinner this Sunday, though, if you're agreeable."

Remus scratched at the scar crossing the bridge of his nose. "I don't mind. She know what I am?"

"Not her business."

"Reckon not. Hardly matters, if she's not likely to be at the farm much."

He saw his father risk another glance, this time more concerned. He'd heard him talking with the crew foreman; he knew Rufus was worried about him, wondering when he'd take an interest in anything outside the farm, when he'd go back to reading from the shelf of books in his bedroom, when he'd try writing to any of his acquaintances in Australia or America. 

"Told her you were back," he said softly. "Told her you were a great one for books. She's been putting some aside for you."

Remus nodded. "I don't mind meeting her."

"Hoped you'd say that," Rufus answered. "And...well, there's one other thing..."

***

Remus was incredibly glad Rufus had prepared him for this, even if it was only a few minutes beforehand; otherwise his heart might have stopped in shock at seeing two young children run out of the dusty-windowed shop to leap on his father. 

"Tykes," Rufus said calmly, as a pale-haired boy tried to swing from his shoulders and a slightly older girl hugged his neck. "Down, child," he cried, swatting irritably at the boy. Close up, they were certainly too old to be Rufus' children, if he'd only been seeing Alice Derwent eight years; the boy looked to be about ten, the girl nearly thirteen. 

"Did you bring us a chicken, Papa Rufus?" the girl asked, and Rufus held up a brown-wrapped package, a chicken Remus had seen him plucking earlier that morning. The girl took it from him, kissed his cheek, and ran inside. Rufus gave his son a slightly embarrassed look before he shrugged the blond boy off his back.

"Run on," he said, and the boy dashed inside after his sister, somewhat more slowly; he had a limp in one leg. Remus covered his grin with his hand.

"Always bring 'em something nice to eat," Rufus grumbled. "Town food's not so fresh."

"That's very good of you," Remus said gravely. "They seem fond of you."

"Father ran out on 'em two years before I met her properly," Rufus answered. "Just after the lad was born. Rascal of a chap. Nearly ran the business into the ground."

"They look as though they're doing all right now," Remus observed, as two pale heads popped out of the doorway.

"Aye, so they are," Rufus answered gruffly, stepping inside. 

The shop was dim but neat, well-kept; rows of wooden bookshelves were filled with gently-used second-hand books, and a case in the corner displayed some maps and other ephemera. Behind the counter, a woman was bent over a ledger, but she looked up and smiled as their shadows filled the doorway. Neither children bore a particularly strong resemblance to her; she had much darker hair, and finer features. She looked too young, Remus reflected, to have children as old as thirteen. 

"Rufus," she said warmly, and hugged him while Remus lagged shyly near the door. He didn't remember his own mum all that well, but a sudden image of his father and mother standing in the kitchen, hugging -- mum still, he recalled, with a potato-peeler in one hand -- rose up out of somewhere. 

_It's a good thing,_ he told himself. _He oughtn't be alone so much, out on that farm. He should have someone --_

_He's probably thinking the same thing about you._

"And you must be the famous Auror son," Alice said, coming forward and holding out a hand. Remus took it, feeling a firm grip, dry palm, cool fingers. "It's a pleasure to finally see you in the flesh. Good lord, Rufus, aren't you feeding him?"

"He's been ill," Rufus grunted. 

"Pleasure to meet you, ma'am," Remus answered, putting on Smile 2.1 in the Auror Handbook: Genuine Pleasure (Informal). 

"This is Hadrian and that's Augusta," Alice said, indicating the children, who were now staring outright at the scarred, sun-tanned man still lingering near the door. Remus couldn't help raising a curious eyebrow. "Well, Alice is such a dull name, don't you think?"

"Not at all," Remus murmured politely. Hadrian poked him.

"You really an Auror?" he demanded. 

"Hadrian!" Alice scolded. "Run along, make trouble somewhere else."

Hadrian scuttled off, but Augusta remained, peering around a bookshelf at him. Alice didn't seem to notice her daughter; she gently took Remus by the arm and pulled him fully inside, closing the door and turning the sign to "Closed". 

"We'll have a bit of lunch, then," she said firmly, leading the two men back behind the counter and up a flight of narrow stairs. Above the bookshop was a better-lit, airy sort of flat, including a tidy kitchen, where she waved them into chairs at a fair-sized table covered in books.

"Hadrian's a great one for reading," she said, excusing the mess deftly. Remus lifted on of the nearby volumes; a Muggle novel of some kind. "Rufus tells me you were as well, as a child," she continued, taking out a loaf of bread and setting some sandwich-making charms to work. Augusta continued to peek around corners, hiding behind the stairway banister. 

"Er...." Remus glanced at his father. "Yes. I suppose I was."

She shot them a smile as she poured five glasses of lemonade, and Rufus rose to collect two of them. She kissed him on the cheek as he did so. Remus took one glass from his father, studying it idly. Augusta slunk around the banister and grabbed one, standing nearly-behind a cupboard. Alice orchestrated the sandwich-making like a conductor, sipping her lemonade.

"How do you take your sandwiches, Remus?" she inquired. 

"Oh, I -- cheese, and er..." he watched the food flying through the air, "Turkey, please, and lettuce. No mustard."

"Tomatoes?"

"No, thank you."

"Just like your father," Alice smiled. "It is strange. I imagine you must look how Rufus looked when he was your age."

Remus glanced away, self-conscious of the scars on his face and the still-visible mark on his neck. "Sort of."

"How'd you get those marks?" Augusta blurted. Alice swatted her.

"Rude!" she exclaimed. "You apologise to Remus right now."

"It's all right," Remus said quickly. 

"It is not," Alice said.

"I just wanted to know," Augusta protested.

"Say you're sorry, Augusta," Rufus rumbled. Augusta bowed her head and muttered "M'sorry," rebelliously, stomping off.

"No manners," Alice sighed. 

"It -- really, I'm not offended," Remus said. "I was attacked when I was in Australia, that's all."

"Well, they're marks of courage then, I'm sure," Alice said. "Augusta, come back here," she called. "Lunch is ready. Fetch Hadrian."

Augusta sulked her way through the kitchen and stood at the top of the stairs. "HADRIAN!" she yelled. Alice put her face in her hands.

"WHAT?" came a yell up the stairs.

"LUNCH!"

"I'd have liked to have made a good impression on you, Remus, but I'm afraid my children had other ideas."

Remus smiled. "I taught thirteen-year-olds, I understand entirely. Augusta, come sit by me," he called, and the girl flounced down in the chair next to him as Hadrian clattered noisily up the stairs, taking two of the plates and tossing one carelessly in front of Augusta while his mother set another two in front of the Lupins, and one for herself. 

"When I was in Australia," he said to Augusta, and glanced at Hadrian as a tacit invitation to listen, "I was out on patrol when a load of Muggles decided they were going to pick a fight with us."

"Remus, don't be filling their heads with nonsense," Rufus warned, and Remus met his father's eyes for a moment. Don't bring up werewolves, the look said. 

"Honest truth," Remus replied. "And one of them had a knife, and he got hold of me while I was fighting another one, who had a chain."

"Did you win?" Hadrian asked.

"We did, in fact," Remus answered. "I used the Auror Elbow."

"The what?" 

"It's where you bring your arm up like this," Remus demonstrated, "and you just give a little jab -- " 

He caught Alice's eye, and paused.

"And if either of you try it on the other I'm sure your mum wouldn't mind me knocking both your heads together," he finished. Alice grinned at him, and Rufus smiled approvingly. 

***

"That went well," Rufus observed that afternoon, as they drove back towards the farm. Remus, packages of shirts and trousers sitting by his feet, nodded as he watched the scenery pass. He'd gone to buy clothes while Rufus spent the afternoon downstairs with Alice; when he'd returned, Rufus was giving Augusta a Talk about manners and familial duty. It struck him that perhaps these children now knew his father better than he did. 

"Good you got on all right during lunch," Rufus added. 

"Nervous, dad?" Remus asked. Rufus shrugged, eloquently. "She's nice enough. Bit young for you."

"Often thought so myself. Dunno why she puts up with me," he answered. 

"Her put up with you?" Remus grinned. "I don't know how you put up with those terrors she calls children."

"Hadrian's a good boy," Rufus replied. "Augusta's..."

"Hitting an awkward stage?" Remus suggested.

"Never had any trouble with you at that age," Rufus admitted. 

"Well, I am an abnormal -- "

"Don't say that."

Remus sat back on the seat, letting his head drift back, staring at the roof of the truck. "I didn't mean it like that, dad."

They rode in silence for a while, until Rufus spoke again. "She thinks you're a fine young man."

"She clearly hasn't got to know me."

"All right having them to dinner on Sunday, then?"

"Sure. I can just imagine how much Augusta likes the chicken yard."

Rufus chuckled. "City girl. Hadrian's no better. Nearly had to take a switch to him for chasing chickens."

"You never would. Never did with me and I did far worse than chase chickens."

"No, you left that to that great black Newf you got after school -- what was his name?"

Remus felt something clench in his throat. "Padfoot," he said.

"That's the one. Used to bring him down here of weekends with James and that Pettigrew boy. Whatever happened to that dog?"

"Had to be put down. Rabid."

"Shame. Hell of a creature."

Remus didn't reply. 

"Didn't mean to mention Potter," Rufus said quietly.

"It's fine."

"Got those books Alice put aside for you. They're behind the seat."

They bumped off the road and onto the dirt track leading down to the farmhouse; Remus pled exhaustion, and took the parcel of books and clothing up to his room, setting them on his desk before dropping onto the bed. 

So his father had a girlfriend, a strange thing to think of, and she had two children who called him Papa Rufus, children his father was allowed to discipline as if they were his own. Hadrian had probably never known any other father. Children who were his, Remus Lupin's, siblings -- more or less. 

He reached out for the neat package on the desk, picking it up by the twine that bound it and tugging at the knot until it came loose, before pulling the books out of the paper wrapping. A book about advanced Transfiguration, one about magical Defence, and two Muggle novels with adventursome-looking covers; The Sea Wolf by Jack London, and one by a fellow named Hemingway, whom he'd heard of somewhere before. 

He hoped The Sea Wolf was merely a happy coincidence. 

He opened the book on Defence, pushing himself up so that he sat against the headboard, and began to read. Ten minutes later his head drooped backwards, and the book slipped to the blanket. 

He only woke when Rufus called him down to dinner, and the clattering of the farmhands into the big dining room became too much for him to ignore. 

***

"Remus!"

"Yes dad?"

"Have you stolen my razor blades?"

Remus leaned out of his bedroom, and narrowed his eyes at his father. "I don't use razor blades, dad, you know that."

"Well, someone has," Rufus said dourly. 

"You're probably misplaced them. Why don't you just use a shaving charm?" Remus called, moving back to his bed, where he was knotting a tie on the bedpost.

His father's voice drifted in. "Because I'm wretched at them. Always have been."

"You should get a Shearsides."

"What's that then?"

"This is Yorkshire, dad, not Bora Bora," Remus replied, hanging the tie around his neck. "Shearsides! Automatic Wizarding razors! You hold still and they do all the work for you."

"Don't trust them," Rufus muttered, as Remus presented himself for inspection. "Straighten your collar."

Remus fiddled with it while his father rummaged in an enormous leather toiletries kit. "For crying out loud, dad, here," he said, pointing his wand at his father's chin. "Depilo!" he said, and flicked it. Rufus twitched, but his five o'clock shadow vanished. "There. Now -- "

There was a crash from downstairs, and an enraged shriek. "Hadrian!"

"The terror is here," Remus said grimly.

"Be polite," Rufus ordered. "She's a good woman."

"I wasn't talking about her," Remus answered from the stairwell, before descending. Alice apparently had permission to come and go as she pleased; when he walked into the kitchen she was already unpacking two bottles of wine from a basket, while Augusta toyed with the lacy ends of her sleeves and Hadrian forlornly collected up bits of a terracotta flower pot, which had formerly been growing chives on the windowsill. 

"Remus -- I'm so sorry, Hadrian's just discovered the wonders of the slingshot," she said apologetically. "We'll get you a new flowerpot."

"Easy enough to fix it," Remus answered. "Got all the bits?" he asked. Hadrian nodded. "Right then, put the chives on the bottom...reparo!" he said, and the pot began to reassemble itself. "Dad'll be down in a minute, he's finishing dressing."

"Thank you for having us to dinner," Alice said with a warm smile. 

"Not really my decision," Remus answered, then realised how it sounded. "Er. I mean to say, I don't mind. Been a bit of a habit, I understand."

"Sort of," Alice replied, taking a large, sealed bowl out of the basket. "It's -- Hadrian!"

Hadrian had been watching the Reparo spell rebuild the chives-pot, and now had grabbed hold of the last piece, seeing how long he could keep it from attaching to the rest of the reassembled planter. The shard was slowly dragging him forward, and his trainers squeaked on the floor. She rapped her wand lightly across his knuckles, and he let go. The chip flew into its proper place, and Hadrian rubbed his knuckles regretfully. Remus reached out and plucked the slingshot out of his back pocket as he headed for the kitchen back-door.

"It's a phase," Alice sighed, uncovering the bowl and setting a slow-heating charm on the soup inside. "I hope it's a phase."

"It usually is," Remus answered absently, as he began to set the table. 

"Augusta, help Remus, there's a good girl," Alice ordered, and Augusta accepted the silverware, placing it wrong-way-round. Remus corrected her on the third setting, and she sighed, going back to re-do the other two while Remus re-entered the kitchen.

"They're very...active," he said tactfully. Alice rolled her eyes. "Could be worse."

"It's so good to have Rufus around, he knows exactly how to handle them. Comes of raising a child himself, I suppose. It's been good for Hadrian, especially, to have a...a father, of sorts. I imagine that doesn't make you very comfortable," she added. Remus shrugged, and picked up the slingshot.

"That thing again?" Rufus asked, as he entered the kitchen. Remus offered the toy to his father, who took it and shoved it in his own pocket. Alice kissed him hello, while Remus looked away, awkwardly. Augusta wandered back into the kitchen and made a distinctly disgusted noise. 

"Behave yourself," Rufus told her, and she flounced into the living room, leaning on one of the wide windows that looked out on the front garden. "Soup?" Rufus continued, peering over Alice's shoulder. Remus felt that twinge again, as another memory rose of another woman in this kitchen, and his father making that very gesture, one hand on the counter as his left arm encircled her waist. He turned and went back into the dining room to make sure the table was arranged properly. Outside, he could see Hadrian flicking pebbles into the sheepyard idly, the sheep entirely undisturbed by this activity. He rapped on the window and gestured the boy inside. 

Dinner was peaceful enough, though Remus didn't speak much; Alice made conversation, and Hadrian seemed eager enough to tell Rufus about the first week of school which was fast impending. The soup was good, as were the chops and rolls his father had cooked, and Remus took a sort of pleasure in listening and watching. He wondered idly if Alice had been a Hogwarts girl; he reckoned at the outside she couldn't be more than five years older than he was, despite having a thirteen-year-old daughter. 

He kept his curiousity to himself, however, and merely smiled when he ought, answered a question or two from Hadrian and Augusta, and tried not to seem as though he was sulking. He'd had enough training and spent enough time alone in his life that he could look at himself as others saw him and get a fair estimation of how he must seem; a slightly dour, injured young man, hardened into a regimental structure, well-mannered, with the stiff politeness of a military recruit. Dangerous, perhaps; not to be left with the children, lest he teach them something violent, or worse, commit some sort of violence. 

And yet, in balancing the scales, he was a shy and bookish son of a solid, well-raised farmer, a veteran of service whose injuries had clearly cost him his livelihood, healing up as best he could with the only family he had.

He must confuse her greatly, he thought, and was surprised to find a slight pang of vindictive pleasure in this. Let her be confused; he was his father's son, and he had been here first. 

He was glad when they left. Unused to entertaining company and exhausted by it, he crept up the stairs to his room and sat on his bed, reading his way into sleep as he often did, because otherwise it was difficult to sleep at all. He didn't have nightmares, precisely, but through all his dreams flitted the shadowy, ethereal image of Lacon Chaney, his malformed face -- pale human skin over pushed-forward wolfish cheekbones and jaw -- peering out at him from unlikely places. Through windows, past distant tree lines, over the tops of racks of books; in memories of the crowded Plucked Emu, in the darkened doorways of the Academy's student quarters, over the barrel of Michael Owens' rifle. 

Sometimes he had Sirius Black's eyes. 

It was difficult to sleep, knowing what would come, like wondering if someone was going to reach over just as you drifted off and grab your wrist. Perhaps he was a frightening man after all, the culmination of a mother's fears. 

After all, normal young men of twenty-nine didn't need to be locked in the cellar every four weeks. 

***

Augusta left a week later -- not for Hogwarts, as Remus has expected, but Beauxbatons -- and Hadrian returned to the village school, where apparently he thrived. Remus heard stories of Hadrian's misadventures and Augusta's various trials and tribulations through his father, or through the Sunday dinners he became gradually more accustomed to. Augusta, it was quite clear, was not actually that fond of Papa Rufus' grown son, but she was away at school, and he reached an accord of sorts with Hadrian in the meantime. It did involve some debate over the slingshot, but in the end Remus won out and the chickens in the yard were more or less safe from short-range projectiles. 

His father took the truck into town rather more often than was necessary, but Remus knew how to run the farm in his absence, and sometimes didn't notice, except when he came back to the house to find a note on the kitchen counter. Sunday dinners were soon joined by Thursday dinners, and once in a while, by Friday morning breakfasts, when Hadrian was staying at a friends' house for the night. Remus tended to make himself scarce on Thursday nights and sometimes Sundays too, finding excuses to bed down with the hired help, or prowling the fences and sleeping under the stars, something he'd done during Alabama summers but found a bit inhospitable in Yorkshire autumn.

If his father noticed his absences, he paid them no mind, neither to reprimand Remus for distancing himself nor to thank him for the privacy it afforded. Remus didn't really want either. 

As September passed into October and the harvest was finished, he found he enjoyed ranging out away from the house, whether in escape or merely out of restlessness. He liked their wide farmlands and had run wild here as a child, even after his bite. He found things he'd carved in fences, places he'd discovered as a boy -- a grove of trees that kept out the rain, a tangle of underbrush that he'd once been small enough to crawl through into a secret open space, a gully where the neighbours dumped all sorts of trash to fascinate a nine-year-old. He learned how to drive the truck, too, so that if he wished he could get into town on his own power, or run errands for his father. He didn't like the big Muggle contraption -- it lacked grace, and he worried about the fact that it was a large, fast-moving object which was only vaguely controlled by its driver. He still went in, though, when his father asked or when need dictated. 

There were people in town who knew him, or at any rate remembered him as a child, and recognised the Lupin features on his scarred face. They said hello in passing, asked after his father and himself, or reminisced briefly about when he'd been hip-high and a troublemaker. They all, to a one, told him how well and healthy he was looking -- no doubt his father or Alice had mentioned he was recuperating from injuries, and the townspeople wanted one of their own to feel welcome again. 

He considered it all while studying his lunch in the pub, early one Sunday when he'd been sent to fetch Alice and Hadrian (as well as some food) for dinner. He had some time to kill before he had to fetch them, and had gravitated to the pub, from which came the delicious smells of food frying. He wasn't drinking -- the truck was frightening enough sober -- but the temptation to bring a few pints home to blur the evening a bit was a strong one. 

"As I live, it's Lupin the Younger," said a voice behind him, and a hand descended to clap him on the shoulder. He turned, a smile at the ready (Auror Handbook Smile #4: Off-duty Amiable) to see the aged but still-familiar face of Cole Greyson beaming down at him.

"Mr. Greyson," he said, keeping the smile in place and holding out his hand. "How are you, sir?"

"Not dead yet, rumours to the contrary," the man replied, shaking his hand firmly and sliding into the chair next to him. "A pint for me, and young master Lupin," he ordered, and Lupin shook his head.

"Driving home," he said. "Best not indulge."

"Right then, a pint for me, and a pint and a driver for him," Greyson corrected, and the barman served him his beer, giving Remus only a grin and a wink. Greyson was one of the town elders, inasmuch as such a thing existed -- when Remus was a boy he'd been a venerable old Muggle farming gentleman, native stock, who'd retired to town to let his tenants work his plot. Back then he'd been stocky, grey-haired, with skin tanned to rawhide and amiable country manners; now, ten years on, he still looked strong, though his perpetual sunburn had faded and his hair was pale white, much thinner than it had been. His voice was the same, and his craggy face, even if there were new wrinkles. Remus had liked him quite a lot, as a child. 

"I'd heard you'd come home to roost, young cock," Greyson continued, and Remus ducked his head, still grinning. "You look bloody awful, you know," he added, sipping the pint. 

"Face I was born with," Remus replied, around a mouthful of potatoes. 

"With a few additions. True you were a copper down south?"

Only Greyson would refer to an entirely separate subcontinent as _down south_. "All the stories are true," Remus agreed. He'd been sixteen the last time he'd encountered Greyson, and was making quick adjustments to the fact that not only was he a grown man now, but Greyson was treating him like one. 

"I hope not all of them, that'd leave me with precious little left to ask," the older man said, turning to face him. "Doing all right then?"

"Yes, sir. Wounds are all healed," Remus answered. 

"Life out there in the wilds with your father suit you?"

"For now."

Greyson grinned. "Lad like you, gone out to see the world, must be a bit dull to come home here."

"I like the peace," Remus murmured. 

"Clearly you've not been caught up on town gossip, if you think we're a peaceful lot," Greyson laughed. "There never were more contentious people than small-towners. The scandal over your dad and that woman of his would have singed your hair at the time. Mostly on account of her husband ran off, really."

"Seems the scandal's settled down now," Remus murmured.

"Aye, so it has. Any road, he's no less well-liked for taking those children of hers under his wing. The lad's a page at the Masques this year, did you know?"

Remus cast back in his mind for what Greyson was referring to, and then wondered how he ever could have forgotten it. 

"Bloody hell," he said, and then covered his mouth with one hand, but Greyson merely laughed again. 

"Forgot those, did you?" he asked. "Surprised you could. Guess you don't get into town all that often?"

"And don't speak to many when I do," Remus agreed. "Lord, the Masques, I had forgotten about that. It must be fairly soon?"

"Week after Hallowe'en this year," Greyson said. "Surprised you've not been suggested for King of the Green, you're about of age. Maybe a bit old, but we've had older. Proper welcome home for you."

"Doubt I'd remember what's done anymore," Remus said, though the memories of Masques from years past were flooding back. He'd been Page when he was a bit younger than Hadrian...

"Oh, you're told all over again," Greyson said airily. "Last year's king always has a bit of advice for the new lad. I'll put your name down."

"You needn't do that -- I'm sure there are much better candidates -- "

"Thin crop this year, actually," Greyson replied. "Between generations a bit, like. You'd do well. You look more the part than the others."

Remus shook his head. "Really, you shouldn't. I'm hardly a part of the town anymore -- "

"Reclaim you then, won't we?" Greyson said. "I'll arrange everything."

Remus knew he was doomed as soon as Cole Greyson said those three words. When he arranged things, they stayed arranged. 

He brushed it off lightly, though, and they went on to talk of other matters -- town gossip Greyson thought he ought to know, how the harvest had gone for Lupin the Elder, whether or not Remus was taking to Alice at all. By the time Remus had finished his meal and Greyson his pint, it was time for him to meet Alice and Hadrian, and the older man waved him off with the injunction to meet him next Saturday so that they could discuss matters of political import. Remus found himself smiling, and meaning it for the first time in ages, as he walked up the High Street towards Alice's shop.


	5. Chapter 5

It was probably a good thing Greyson had reminded Remus of the Masques; as Hallowe'en drew near, it was all anyone talked about. People began to stop by the Lupin household, to speak with his father over tea about plans for the Masque and, as they always did, speculate on who would be taking part, asking if he'd brought down the masks yet. Somehow, before Remus was even born, the Lupins had inherited the job of keeping the moldering Masque props, in their equally decrepit trunk, from year to year; perhaps his grandmother's knack for craftsmanship had attracted the attention of whoever had kept them before. 

"I wanted to be Queen at the Masques, when I was a girl," Alice said to him, the Sunday just before Hallowe'en, as they sat on the back porch after an early dinner and watched his father teach Hadrian how to clean and load the elderly rifle they kept to hunt foxes with. "Never really had the chance, after school."

"I've been meaning to ask you about that," Remus said, leaning back a bit in the chair. He reached for the flask his father'd left on the table and poured a nip into his tea, offering her some, but she waved it away. "Were you at Hogwarts?"

"Yes -- I'd wanted to talk to you about that, too. I recalled you, vaguely, you know. You were in first year when I left, so I doubted you remembered me at all -- I think I only remember you because your Gryffindor friends were already making trouble. I didn't think you'd recall a sixth-year Ravenclaw named Alice."

Remus shook his head. "I don't."

"It's the reason I never did get to be Queen," Alice said, a trifle regretfully. "I was the sort of girl who's the reason boys aren't allowed in their part of the dormitories -- headstrong, a bit less concerned with studies than with other things. Augusta's the same way, that's why she's at Beauxbatons -- they keep them a bit more strictly in line there."

"You don't seem the troublemaking type."

"I'm not, now," she laughed. "One can't be, with two children. I was, then. I left school early, got myself into a little trouble -- it all ended right, though, or as right as anything ever is."

"Why would that keep you from being Queen?"

"Oh, well." She looked down at her hands. "You remember the rules. The Queen has to be unmarried. And can't have already had children."

Remus mulled this over, still confused, until pieces began to click into place, and a dim memory surfaced. "You're that Ravenclaw," he said mildly. She gave a rueful laugh. "The girl who left early, and nobody told us why."

"That was me. Augusta was due in November of my seventh year, and my parents felt it would be better if I simply didn't go back -- I'd had my OWLs, after all," she sighed. "I told you I was a troublemaker."

Remus was silent for a while, unable to think of a suitable reply. He knew from Hogwarts boys; he'd been one, after all. James and Lily'd always been careful, but just before Christmas hols, final year, Sirius'd had a bad scare over one of his many girls.

"Do you think less of me for it?" Alice asked, finally. Remus shook his head. "I wouldn't blame you."

"We all have mistakes in our past," he said reservedly, thinking of Michael Owens at the other end of the rifle, Severus Snape's revolted withdrawal from his touch, and the look on Hobson's face after he'd shot Lacon Chaney. 

And then he didn't want to think about it anymore. 

"Word in town is that Cole Grayson's picked you for the King of the Green," she continued, clearly as eager to change the subject as he was. "Do you know who'll be Queen this year?"

"Not yet. A Muggle town-girl, I imagine. Doubt it'll be the mystery it's supposed to; she's got to come by the farm to get the mask fitted to her sooner or later."

"Your father's brought them down, then?"

"Aye, and unpacked them. I'm to help him prepare them."

"Isn't that bad luck of some kind?"

"Can't think why. Means I can fit my own mask comfortably," Remus said, as Rufus helped Hadrian lift the rifle to his shoulder, sights set on a distant fencepost. "Are you sure it's entirely wise to trust the boy with a shotgun, when we still have to take away his slingshot?" he asked idly.

"I wouldn't worry. As long as Rufus is about, the chickens appear to be safe," she replied, just as lazily. They watched as Hadrian, Rufus' browned, thick-muscled arms around his, fired a shot, and a splinter of fencepost flew off. They fired the other barrel together, and then Rufus restrained Hadrian from going for the shells until he had shown him properly how to clean the rifle after firing it. 

"I know you don't like me, Remus," Alice said quietly. Remus turned to look at her, stunned. "I know you don't like Augusta or Hadrian, either."

"Alice, you know that's not true -- " he began, but she shook her head.

"You have every reason in the world to dislike us personally," she said. "Hadrian and Augusta have stolen your father away; I'm sure you must look at me sometimes and compare me to your mother." 

"You oughtn't say such things," he answered, because her frankness made it difficult to speak the socially acceptable lies on the tip of his tongue. 

"And you have a few good reasons to dislike us on a general level, I suppose," she said, ignoring him. "Lord, Remus, I know Hadrian's not as mannered as he ought to be. It's been hard to raise him without his father -- hard for him to be raised without one. Rufus is a good man, but he can only do so much."

Remus watched his father support Hadrian's balance, the boy's hip tucked snugly against his shoulder as he crouched. 

"Your husband," he said. "Hadrian's the reason he left, isn't he."

"Yes, and Hadrian knows it, poor boy. Muggle doctors said he hadn't even a chance of walking. The Healers were doubtful too, though they've done wonders. Magic still can't solve everything."

Remus gave a sharp bark of laughter. "That's true."

"He was afraid of having a _crippled_ son. On top of Augusta being, well, a three-year-old, and us being married too young..." She shrugged. "There were days I wanted to run away too. I don't -- well, I do blame him, but I don't condemn him."

"You're in a confessional mood tonight," Remus observed.

"I think you ought to know these things," she replied. "I'm slowly realising, Remus, that you're here for a while, if not for good. You're not like the crops and the farmhands, you won't go away in the winter. Cole Greyson wants you to be King of the Green at the Masques because he wants you to be a part of the town again. Your father talks about tearing down the barn in the spring and rebuilding it, now that he's got your help. He's asked me about jobs for you in town."

"He has?" Remus asked, more startled by that than by the rest of her admission. She nodded. 

"He thinks you're hiding out here," she said. "And he worries after you. Hallo my beautiful boys!" she added, turning away from him slightly to greet Hadrian and Rufus as they climbed the steps, Hadrian more slowly, favouring his leg as usual. He hugged his mother around the neck while Rufus dropped into a third chair, and Remus passed him the flask.

"Boy's a natural," Rufus said approvingly.

"You're a good teacher," Alice answered. "I'll bet you said the same thing when you taught Remus to shoot."

Rufus glanced at his son. "He was," he said gruffly. 

"Were you?" Alice asked. 

_There was an explosion so loud Remus thought his eardrums had burst, and a puff of white smoke. Blood spattered across Hobson's red shirt._

_Remus stared. It really doesn't show the stains, said a small rational voice in his head._

_He dropped his hand and saw Lacon lying in the grass, a bloody, black-edged hole between his shoulderblades._

"Not a bad shot," Remus said, looking away. 

***

Hallowe'en dawned crisp and cold that year, as it usually did, and Remus was awake to see it. 

There had been a full moon on the twenty-fifth, but it was an unusually mild transformation, and he was up and about by the end of the week. A part of him longed just once for a Hallowe'en full moon, so that he could pass the wretched day distracted, and the awful night without conscious thought. It gave him a twinge; he should never long to be a beast at all. That way lay dragons he was not yet prepared to face. 

He was on the road that led into town, intending to make the day as normal as possible, considering what it was; tomorrow they'd be celebrating, toasting the Boy Who Lived, or so his father told him -- the British, who had borne the brunt of Voldemort's tyrannous violence, took more notice of it than the Australians or Americans ever had, but Remus had never been in-country since it happened. Tomorrow he'd spend the day in his room, or perhaps walk out again in the opposite direction, through the fields and away from people; today he wanted to pretend it was just Hallowe'en, and not the day three of his closest friends in the world had died, betrayed by a fourth. 

He could have taken the truck, he supposed, but the walk would do him good, and he felt the need for fresh air untainted by exhaust fumes. It wasn't too far; an uncomfortable distance if one was carrying anything, but all he had was his wallet in his pocket and an overcoat borrowed from his father to keep out the wind. 

Perhaps, if he was going to stay here much longer, he ought to consider gainful employment. His meagre savings were being spent on books and food or a drink at the pub occasionally, which didn't amount to much. There were, however, various bills around the farm; if he ate his father's food and slept under his father's roof he felt he ought to pay him something, but since Rufus wouldn't accept payment from his son and they were both too proud for their own good, Remus simply intercepted the occasional bill, paid it with his own money, and sent it off without remarking on it. His father pretended he hadn't noticed, and both of them were satisfied. 

After the Masques, he decided, he'd find some sort of job. Alice would know someone in town who needed a stocker, or a farmhand, or a clerk. Just enough wages to continue to pay his share, and set some aside. 

Aside for what, he wondered, but only vaguely. You always set some aside. That was just what one did. 

He reached the High Street just as shops were opening, and bought breakfast from the cafe across from Alice's bookshop. He supposed he ought to stop in and be pleasant for a few minutes, but he had nothing really terribly interesting to say. Besides, if she had books set aside for him or his father, as she nearly always did, he'd rather not carry them around until he was ready to walk home. He half-hoped to see Cole Greyson again; the man's cheerful politicking was numbingly comforting.

The woman at the cafe gave him an especially warm smile as he bought a cocoa to take with him as he walked, and he returned it (2.2 -- Genuine Pleasure, Formal) before stepping back out into the pale morning light. People nodded at him as he passed, or waved from across the street; most of the old families knew each other, and it hadn't taken long for them to begin recognising Young Lupin again, though they weren't on particularly close terms. 

He stopped to look in windows, or duck inside to examine something more closely, but mostly he simply wandered -- down side alleys, across other streets, looping back around when his idle curiousity was satisfied. By the time he'd worked his way to the bottom of the street, he was ready to rest -- perhaps he wasn't all that recovered from the full moon -- and he settled himself and the dregs of his cocoa on a bench to watch the mid-morning crowd pass.

It was mostly pensioners and women with young children, interspersed with businessmen either late for something or very early. He recognised one or two witches who were friends of Alice; the magical community wasn't large, but one could always tell a witch or wizard. There was a certain air they had, a sense one got that there was a gap where a pointy hat and robes ought to be, instead of a sensible bun or an ill-fitting business suit. Some of them looked at him strangely -- perhaps they thought Old Lupin's son ought to be doing something more productive. After the third peculiar stare, he gathered himself up and threw out his cocoa cup, proceeding a little more efficiently up the street than he had on his way down. 

Alice looked up from ringing up a customer when he walked in, and gave him a little wave; the woman buying books turned and nodded a greeting before paying for her purchase and accepting the plastic sack of what appeared to be travel books. A well-dressed young man at the front of the store was examining cookbooks one aisle to his left, and a woman nearby was reading the backs of crime novels; otherwise the shop was empty. Remus stood aside to let Alice's latest customer pass him in the main aisle, and Alice leaned on the counter as he dawdled his way over, pausing to inspect the books on the Newly Acquired shelf. 

"Good morning, Remus," she said, but there was a strange tone to her voice he didn't recognise. 

"Morning, Alice," he answered, ignoring it for now. "Business going well, I see."

"Yes, as well as it ever does."

"I was in town, I thought I'd see if you had any books for dad."

She bit her lip for a second, then reached under the counter and took out a few small volumes -- one on agriculture, two magazines, and a novel, tied up with twine. He picked it up by the knot and swung it in his fingers, fumbling for something else polite -- sociable -- to say. 

"Chilly day out," he said finally. She nodded. "You be up to dinner on Sunday?"

"I think so," she said, still sounding strained. "I thought you and Rufus might stay in town Saturday night, after the Masque. Remus...have you seen the paper today?"

Remus cocked his head. "Why, has something -- " he began, and then stopped. "They ran the photograph again, didn't they."

She pushed a copy of the Daily Prophet across the counter at him, and he turned it around, sighing. He was never going to escape it; he'd be stuck there forever, in the photograph, looking out on the wreckage of his li -- 

\-- of the Potter household. 

"They hadn't, the past few years," he observed. "I wonder why they decided to this year."

"Sirius Black," said the woman in the Crime section, and Remus looked up sharply. She'd moved closer, and was now standing near the aisle entrance, watching them. 

"I'm sorry?" Alice asked, curious. 

"Black's escape last year. Stirred up interest," the woman said. "A lot of armchair detectives had a lot of interesting theories when they read that nobody knew where Remus Lupin was. I'm Athena," she added, holding out his hand. Remus regarded it warily. "Athena Smith. You're Remus Lupin."

Remus glanced at Alice, and then back to Athena Smith, who still had her hand extended. 

"I'm not a journalist," Smith added. "I'm an anthropologist. Well, technically, a witanthropologist. I study -- "

"I know what a witanthropologist is," Remus said. 

"You're one of the few, then," Smith said, dropping her hand. "Sorry to butt in, but I couldn't help overhearing. It must be very strange for you," she added, her glance sliding to the newspaper for a moment. "Seeing yourself on the front page like that. Look, they ran the same bit about you as before. 'The whereabouts of Remus Lupin are at present unknown'. You can't be all that hard to find."

"I doubt any of them are actually looking," Alice said disdainfully, snatching the paper back and tossing it into the trash. "I don't know why I even read that old rag, I'm sure."

"After all, I found you," Smith continued, and if Remus hadn't been tense before, he was now.

"Found me?" he asked, in a low voice. 

"Yes," Smith continued blithely. "Well, I wasn't looking for you, per se -- my specialty's in Wizard-Muggle interactions, and right now I'm working on a book about Muggle traditions carried on from Wizarding ones. Your town's got quite the best harvest festival anywhere in the area," she added. "But I was naturally curious when I saw the man I was supposed to talk to about the arrangements was named Lupin -- your brother, perhaps?" she asked. 

Remus stared at her.

"Well, at any rate, I thought Rufus Lupin was a bit too close to be coincidence, and look how right I was, here you are. It's the beauty of academia, one occasionally turns up absolute gems of opportunity. Can I buy you lunch?"

Smith waited expectantly for an answer, while Remus searched for his wits. "My father," he said finally.

"Beg pardon?"

"The man you want to speak to his my father."

"Fair enough, I'll buy him lunch too, if he's about, though frankly I'd rather pick your brain while I can, before I have to go back to my actual research topic. You don't mind, do you? Purely for academic purposes. I've long meant to make a study of the whole phenomenon -- "

"My life is not a phenomenon," Remus said quietly. 

"Of course it isn't, I didn't mean you. Well. In part," she said, with a smile that was clearly meant to be reassuring but ended up slightly sharklike. "I meant the fall of You-Know-Who, and all the theories and debates and such surrounding it."

"I think perhaps you'd better stick to the Masques," Remus continued, in the same level tone that he was pleased he could maintain. "There are some thing people would rather not be stirred up."

"I'll take that as a polite 'no', then, and continue on," she said, not intimidated in the least. "The Masques it is then. Did you say your father was around?"

"He's at home," Remus replied. "We're a few miles out of town. We've no telephone or floo."

"It must be very pleasant. Would you show me the way? I've my own car..."

"I don't, I'm afraid I walked."

"Well, I'll give you a ride then, so long as you're not worried about me stirring up trouble," she said pleasantly. "Do you have more business in town?"

Remus glanced at Alice. "No, I don't think I do. Sunday, Alice?"

She touched his elbow, comfortingly. "Ask your father if the two of you can come have dinner with us in town tomorrow."

"I'll do that," he replied, and turned back to Smith, who was waiting expectantly. "I'd appreciate that ride," he said a trifle reluctantly, and followed her out of the bookshop. 

***

There was a small workshop off of the farmhands' quarters in the old converted barn, and Remus and Smith found his father there; Rufus glanced up out the window -- once the top half of a dutch-door to a horse stall -- and waved a hand wrapped in bits of tape and padding at his son.

"Glad you're here, help me with this," he commanded, and Remus let himself inside, accepting the wire under-frame of the Queen's mask. 

"You've done the nosepiece wrong," Remus said, examining it.

"Aye, trying to fix it, but the thing won't go. Hurts my fingers," his father said, holding up his hands.

"I've told you, it's arthritis, you need to see a Healer, dad," Remus said, forgetting for a moment the woman lingering in the doorway as his mind focused on the problem at hand. "Let me see the pliers. You've got to leave the loops for the silk to pass through."

"I know that," his father said, mock-sullenly. 

"I think if you twist it up a bit -- have you fitted her for the mask?"

"Tiny little thing. Very narrow face. S'why I had to take all the silk out and do the wire properly. Fabric itself's still good, just got to re-thread it through the loops. Who's this?" Rufus added, and Remus, twiddling the sharp end of a bit of wire, turned to the doorway.

"Oh, sorry -- dad, this is Athena Smith, she's in to see the Masques. Ms. Smith, this is my father, Rufus Lupin."

"A pleasure to meet you, sir," Smith said respectfully. "Athena's fine."

"Athena," Rufus said gravely, shaking her hand before beginning to strip the joint-protecting padding off his fingers. "What brings you out here?" he added, and Remus saw the look in his eye. It was the same look he'd had every time any female friend of Remus' had visited the farm, over the years, even Lily -- the patented _you're not good enough to be my son's young woman, but I'll be polite anyway_ look. He forestalled it quickly.

"Ms. Smith is a witanthropologist. She's in town to study the Masques," he said. "I came across her in town and she gave me a ride back."

His father nodded sagely, and perched himself on a stool in front of the workbench on which were spread the Court Masks. "Had a Muggle come through a few years back asking questions. Imagine you're no different. Pull up a chair if you'd like."

Remus gathered up the shoebox his father had put the Queen's Mask silk in and pocketed a pair of pliers. "I'll be in the house," he said. "Call me when you're ready to fit me."

"Could fit you now," his father offered, but Remus glanced at Smith and shook his head. 

"I'll leave you two to talk," he said, and passed out the way he'd come in, while Smith looked around for something other than a dirt-encrusted milking stool to sit on. 

He sat at the kitchen table, in the farmhouse that he'd grown up in, and worked the Queen's Mask as he'd seen his grandfather and father do it in past years. The frame was made out of vertical wires spaced every inch or so and adjusted to fit the Queen's face, held together with cross-wires. The verticals looped around them, and occasionally rose in little twists through which silk strips were bunched up and threaded, so that when it was fully fitted out it was a mass of horizontal strips of silk, the ends pulled back over or braided into the hair to hold the mask in place. The silk was white, but some strips were slightly yellowed with age, and would need to be replaced next year. 

It was soothing, threading the silk through the tiny eyeholes, smoothing it so that it looked properly textured, evening the ends. He concentrated on that, and not the fact that in a few hours James and Lily would have been dead seven years, or the fact that he was here because he had nowhere else to go, or the fact that a woman was sitting in their barn asking his father questions she had no right to ask about the Masques. Surely his father would be proud that his son was King of the Green, and then she'd want to ask him a million questions, and he'd have to answer. 

What if he didn't want to be King of the Green as Cole Greyson wanted him to be, and become a part of the town again? What if he wanted to hide out here on the Lupin farm forever? It was his birthright, this land, after all. What if he didn't want to answer anyone's questions? 

He found he didn't want anything, really. He simply didn't care.

He laid the Queen's Mask on the kitchen counter where his father would see it when he came in. Gathering a small bowl of leftover roast chicken and cold new potatoes, he retreated to his room and locked the door. He ate lethargically as he read a book he later couldn't recall, and when the food was done, he set the bowlful of chicken bones aside and curled up on his bed, facing the wall, feeling all of eight years old again. 

Harry was eight years old. 

He was probably happy where he was. Professor McGonagall had been dubious, but Dumbledore was confident he'd be safe with Lily's sister. He was probably popular -- James always had been. That must have been difficult for the Dursleys, explaining to Harry who he was and where he came from, especially since they were Muggles. But at least Harry had a place in the world, a history, a future -- he had Hogwarts to look forward to, and Remus remembered all too well the despair he'd felt after the bite, when his parents had told him he shouldn't hope too hard. And the jubilation when his father had said he was still going to be a Hogwarts boy. 

He fell asleep sometime in the early afternoon. It was full dark when he woke; he crept down, replaced his empty bowl with a full one of the soup his father had left on the stove for him, and returned to his room. The soup, heavy and warm in his stomach, made him sleepy again, and when he woke a second time it was November first, the morning Sirius had killed Peter. Remus was up at first light again, and lost himself for the whole day in the wild fields beyond the farm. 

His father was waiting for him when he returned.

"Tis a hard day, lad," he said from the porch, as Remus slouched through the chicken yard, the fowl fluttering away from him as if he were a predator. 

"Yes dad," Remus answered.

"Done with your wandering?"

"Dunno," Remus said, climbing the steps and leaning on the rail, hands in his pockets. "Done for today."

"That woman'd like to have a word with you, sometime," Rufus added. 

"Don't doubt it."

"You still looking to be King of the Green?"

Remus shrugged. His father looked at him pensively, and Remus bridled, without reason. "Alice says you worry about me," he accused.

"I'm your father."

"She says you think I'm hiding here."

"Aren't you?" Rufus asked. 

"What else is there for me out there in the world? I've been there. Dead ends and scars."

Rufus tilted his head slightly. "I didn't raise you to be afraid of a few hard knocks."

Remus pushed away from the railing and went to the back door, lingering there. 

"You didn't have to. The world did that for me," he said, and vanished inside. 

***

The next few days after Halloween passed more actively, and Remus hardly had time to brood on anything, which made for at least the appearance of a cheerful disposition on his part. A nearly steady stream of people -- the Masques planners and people organising the food -- came to speak to his father, who as keeper of the masks was more or less the decision-maker and ultimate mediator when it came to disputes. 

The other Masquers came to see them too, to be fitted a final time; the litter carriers, four overly-muscled young men from other outlying farms, as well as the Maze Bull, the Wicker Man, and the Ladies, a small flock of young women who were herded into the workshop by one of the organisers, while they made eyes at Remus and talked amongst themselves. 

He impassively fitted everyone his father sent to him; the faces of both men and women were nothing more than abstract forms, strange contours that had to be accounted for. He wanted to imagine it was simply that he was being a competent artist -- that in the eye of a craftsman, bone structure and flesh, shadow and highlight, were all merely shapes to be dealt with. 

He convinced himself that was the case, which was why he felt nothing when he touched the faces of young women who clearly wouldn't mind him taking liberties, and equally nothing with the young men, who probably would have knocked him flat if he'd tried anything anyway. They were just forms for the masks. 

"How does that feel?" he asked the Wicker Man, an older gentleman who was having issues with the chafing of the mask's bronze framework across his cheekbones. The Wicker Man's mask was the oldest, and in addition the most difficult to alter; most of the others had wire or cloth bases, but this one was simply a mass of chaotically interwoven bronze, too thick to be easily bent, and with too many gaps to pad the underside without it becoming visible. Remus had finally, surreptitiously, cast a padding charm on the mask. He'd catch hell if his dad found out, but it seemed the only way. 

"That's much better," the man sighed, relieved. "I know it's been a lot of trouble, Remus, but I'm sure you don't want the Wicker Man running about sounding pained and forgetting his lines because the damn traditionalists won't let us make a new one out of sensible aluminum and spray-paint it."

"I suppose there's something to be said for tradition," Remus murmured, as the man undid the series of brown silk cords that tied the mask on. Remus lifted it carefully off his face and set it down on the workbench next to his own mask. 

"I remember when I was King of the Green," the man said nostalgically, glancing down at it. "Bit of a cycle, that, too. When you're young every man wants to be King of the Green. You get to be an old bugger like myself and if you have to take part, you'd rather have somewhere comfortable to sit and watch."

Remus gave him a placid smile. "I expect things've changed since you were King."

"Not all that much, really," the other man said thoughtfully. "You'd remember, you were a page once."

"Sometimes I wonder if I do. It's blurry around the edges," Remus admitted, toying with the edge of his mask. 

"It's not complicated, really. You go where they tell you, and the only really tricky bit is when you're up against the Maze Bull."

Remus lifted an eyebrow. "Don't they train to lose?"

"Yes and no -- he's a big strapping bloke, and it's well and good to say oi yes, I'll lose to this one, but once you get the crowd going and everyone's shouting and all, sometimes he gets a bit proud and thinks there's changes as could be made." The Wicker Man winked at him. "It's a lot of trust to ask of a young lad. You'll do fine, just mind what I said."

Remus gave him another friendly, noncommittal smile, thinking of the strength in his body that sometimes surprised even him, and ushered him politely out the door with all the usual pleasantries. The Masque would begin at sundown tomorrow, and there was a lot to be done; the word frantic might be applied to the activity in the house, but out in the barn it was peaceful, and he could go about his duties quietly and efficiently. 

He liked being alone in the workroom with the warm silence surrounding him. Even if the quiet seemed to weigh like a small ball of lead in his stomach, and made the scar in his neck ache. 

He laid out the masks on the table, one by one, accounting for all of them; Wicker Man, Maze Bull, King of the Green, Queen; Litter-bearers and Ladies. Neatly in order. The Litter-bearers and Ladies had already held rehearsals, and the Wicker Man had learned his lines. He was sure the Queen had been rehearsing the dance, too; in his childhood he remembered the women chosen as Queen would spend weeks practicing, as though it were the most important thing in their life, and not merely a silly town masque whose roots were a confused mixture of Norse and Brittanic tradition, with some Greek thrown in for good measure. 

"They're not really pretty, are they?" a voice asked, and he looked up. Athena Smith, who had more or less dogged their footsteps all week, waved a hand at the masks. "I mean, you think about them and you automatically think oh, what lovely masks, but when you get a good look at them they're rather crude, aren't they? They don't match in the least, and even on individual merit, at best they're...well, they're good examples of folk art," she concluded. 

Remus looked down at them. He'd never considered their aesthetic appeal. They were the masks, that was all. A strange hint of magic that the Muggles groped after for the fertility of their fields and their safety during the winter months. They weren't supposed to be beautiful or ugly. They told you what their wearers represented -- or, if you were a Masquer, they told you who you were and what you were supposed to do about it. 

"I'd like to ask you some questions," Smith said, while Remus contemplated the masks, still not seeing them as objects of beauty or ugliness. "Perhaps tomorrow, while you're getting ready?"

Remus smoothed one of the silk strands on the Queen's mask, unnecessarily. 

"Why?" he asked.

"Well, you're sort of the star," she said, with a small smile. "It'd be an awfully incomplete study otherwise."

"No, I mean, why are you here at all? What's so interesting about it?"

She shrugged. "Some Muggles spend a good deal of their lives chasing after things we take for granted. The Masques represent thousands of years of Muggles trying to achieve through sympathetic action what your or I could do with a flick of the wand. I find it tragic, and also quite wonderful. I don't understand it, really. And I want to."

Remus wanted to tell her that there was nothing to understand, that it was what it was, but arguing with her over it would be futile, so he merely picked up the King's mask and held it up to his face.

"What do I look like?" he asked.

"Like a man with a crude green mask on," she replied. He shrugged, and set the mask down again. 

"Come a little before sundown," he said finally. "We'll talk then."

She nodded. "Thank you. I'll leave you to your masks, in the meantime."

***

Hadrian didn't get a mask -- the Pages never did -- but he did get a uniform, which included a long strip of cloth that covered his shoulders and fell to his knees. Remus was helping him struggle into it, the day of the Masques, when Alice appeared. 

"Hadrian, stop troubling Remus, it's time for him to -- no you don't, young man," she scolded, as Hadrian tried to subtly transfer his slingshot from the pocket of his discarded trousers to the belt of his uniform. "Run along, and don't get your uniform dirty," she called after him, as Hadrian made his escape. "Remus, I've brought your costume," she continued. "You should be getting dressed, sundown's nearly finished."

"Mm," Remus answered, accepting the clothing and reaching for the mask, sitting on the table. "I'll wait on the mask until we reach the field."

"The Queen's already there," Alice answered, with a smile. "Almost everyone is. That Smith woman, the one you agreed to talk to, she's waiting outside."

"Could you tell her to come in?" Remus asked, stepping behind one of the shabby old screens, little more than muslin hung on poles, that acted as modesty-preservers. He began to unbuckle his belt, and heard a rap on the door of the workroom.

"Come in," he called.

"Already have," came Athena's voice, and he craned his head over the screen.

"Just be a minute," he said, shucking his trousers and pulling on the worn, tanned leather knee-britches of the King's costume. He'd seen versions of them in history books; bracae, they were called, and they'd no doubt come to the ritual when the Romans occupied Britain. Probably, he thought sardonically, not this pair. Though they were awfully ancient...

"I can ask questions while you're behind a screen," Athena replied, and he heard amusement in her voice. "Can you tell me what the King of the Green's job is?"

"Metaphorical or literal?"

"Metaphorical."

"Well, he's the god of the fair months, isn't he. I mean, he's the one who brings the spring and the growing seasons. You've got to please the spirit of the summer or the summer won't come, and the crops'll be ruined."

"That's a concern in this part of the country."

"We're farming folk."

"Then why isn't the Queen also the Queen of the Green?"

"Well, the earth doesn't die, just freezes over a bit. I think it's to do with the Persephone myth," Remus said, dropping easily into scholar mode as he laced up the trousers -- a bit loose, but leather was hard to alter -- and began unbuttoning his shirt. 

"But that's a Greek myth," Athena observed. He thought he heard the skritch of quill on parchment.

"Yeah, but it's all a bit mixed up. This part of the country, you've got the Vikings coming down from the north and the Romans coming up from the south, and before that even you've got all the British tribes, fighting each other and intermarrying and carrying each others' brides off and all."

"Is the tradition that old?"

"Guess so. Dad's shown you the mask-keepers' logs, the earliest entry's sometime in the fourteenth century. Must've been a wizard too, it's magically preserved. We lose bits, when Muggles were taking care of them, but -- " he shrugged as he emerged from behind the screen and picked up the mask. He saw her gaping at his scars, but he ignored it; by the time he was done most of them would be covered anyway. "Some of these masks are pretty old. You can see where fixes have been made, but the Wicker Man's mask hasn't been replaced in at least four hundred years."

"H...how do you feel about that?" she asked, with admirable composure considering the shock he'd just given her.

"About what?" he inquired, reaching for a length of ivy, the thick-stemmed, durable stuff that they'd harvested from just outside of town that morning. 

"Being a part of something so old," she said, watching as he tied a tight loop in the end and hooked it over his fingers, so that the loop lay across his palm. 

Remus shrugged and wound the ivy up his arm, tying it off at the top by instinct -- as if he did this sort of thing every day. "I don't, really. Feel anything, that is."

"Do you suppose the Muggles do?"

He tied another loop and began winding the ivy around his other arm, a little less skillfully. "I imagine so. It's really their tradition. There's a few wizarding families, but we've never been in charge of the Masques except by Muggles choosing us."

She watched him as he picked up a green silk ribbon with a buckle on the end, and secured it around his neck. "Why do you suppose they do it?" she asked. 

He glaced at her and picked up the mask. "Because it's tradition. Because it's a pretty good time, when all's said and done. Maybe they still believe in it a bit."

"And why do you do it?"

Remus paused.

"I was asked," he said finally, picking up a jar of deep rust-red greasepaint, working the nearly-solid stuff in his palms a bit before beginning to mask the scars on his ribcage with it. He picked up his wand and charmed a bit of wood nearby, stretching his arms as he felt the paint being applied to his back as well. 

"That's all?"

"That's all," he confirmed, wiping his hands on a rag and picking up the mask. "And I'm afraid that's all I can answer," he added, as he tied the lacings behind his head. His and the Maze Bull's masks were fitted with biteguards as well as laces, in order to secure them more firmly in place; he felt the old molded leather, wrapped in cotton strips, slide between his teeth. 

When he looked up, she was staring again.

"You look completely barbarian," she said, almost disdainfully, and he grinned behind the mask. 

***

The fields where the Masques were held weren't far away, barely half an hour's walk from the farm, but he dawdled on his way; they couldn't begin -- they never did -- before full night fell, and the torches staked around the bounds of the field were the only light. By the time he arrived, there was a crowd gathered around the large, circular maze laid out with sand in the flat-pounded dirt of an unused field; from where he stood, hidden by a small copse of trees, he could see the dais on which the Wicker Man sat, and the bonfire-fuel opposite the dais, on the other side of the maze. 

A hand touched his shoulder lightly, and he turned to see his father standing near him -- of course, Rufus would have kept a lookout. 

"Nip to keep off the cold," he said, holding a flask to the mouth of the mask, and tipping it so that the liquid flowed fairly cleanly into Remus' mouth. The firewhiskey was like a jolt to his empty stomach, and he nodded his thanks as it warmed him to his fingertips. "Nearly time to start."

"Aye," Remus managed around the biteguard, as the crowd fell silent. 

The old, creaking litter, with its crudely carved, leering figures, appeared through the crowd, borne by the men in the mud-coloured masks who were also stripped to the waist; on it sat the Wicker Man, his bronze mask looking almost alive in the flickering torchlight. Next to him sat the Queen, looking rather frightened if her white-knuckled grip on the litter edge was anything to judge by. 

The litter-carriers had practiced, however, and they carried them smoothly around the circle before setting them in front of the dais, trailed by the Queen's court, the Ladies, who arranged themselves at their feet while the litter-carriers stood behind the Wicker Man. 

Remus caught his breath, suddenly lost in the excited anticipation and hardly remembering that this year he wasn't going to be allowed to watch the King of the Green, because he was the king --

With a roar, the Maze Bull burst from a rather crudely-constructed hiding place under some timber in the bonfire fuel; he bellowed at the crowd and shook his head, cruel pointed mask-horns outlined against the sky. The Wicker King had been right; the Maze Bull was an enormous man this year, and he made several children scream as he circled the maze, snorting and stomping. There were lines spoken, but Remus hardly heard them; they were just traditional call-and-answer, a formality overridden by the action they were paired with. 

The Maze Bull carried off the Queen, just as he was supposed to, lifting the small woman bodily and skipping over the lines of the maze to the centre, where he held her fast while the Queen's Ladies shrieked with appropriate dramatics. Remus came back to himself when his father shoved his shoulder, and he nearly stumbled into the clearing, past the bonfire timber and up to the edge of the maze. The Maze Bull bellowed. 

He met the eyes of the Wicker King and saw a strange, almost sympathetic look there; the Wicker King had once been King of the Green, he remembered, and suddenly he was barely Remus Lupin at all. Something replaced him, and he remembered this feeling from when he'd been a Page -- 

And there was Hadrian, solemn-faced for once, coming forward to stand in front of him. Remus crouched, and the boy carefully blindfolded him, fingers knotting the cloth against his hair as the world was plunged into darkness.

"King, can you hear me?" the Queen asked, and he nodded, then again when she asked, "King, can you follow me?"

He took a step forward, then another, confident that Hadrian had moved. 

His father had once said to him the maze-walk was about much more than following where you were led; it was a man's bond with the earth, trusting it to provide and in turn protecting it. 

"Turn to your left."

He pivoted on his heels and toes, not stepping forward until she added "Three paces in a curve to your right, then turn to your right."

The Queen could see, even if she was kept by the Maze Bull; she would tell him how to pace the maze to reach her.

Some years it was more entertaining than others; some years the King of the Green had to try several times before he could even get onto the right path.

"One pace forward, then to your right again, and four paces in a curve to your left."

This year, however -- 

He stumbled, and brought himself up short; the Queen gasped, and waited until he'd recovered before continuing.

"Turn right, one pace, and then again four paces in a curve to the left."

But it wasn't about finding the Queen or an even trade, guidance for protection -- as he nearly tripped again, he realised there were spots dancing in the darkness, he was clenching his eyes shut so hard. He was tense, uncoordinated in the vast darkness of the maze, and lost. 

_It's a lot of trust to ask of a young man,_ the Wicker Man had said. The King of the Green was trusted by the people of the town; normally he hadn't been gone for almost a decade beforehand. And the King of the Green would know the Queen, would recognise her voice; Remus had met her twice, and she'd been barely a teenager when he'd left for America.

He stopped momentarily and let his shoulders fall, opening his eyes to the still-complete darkness inside the mask. 

He'd trusted James and Lily and Peter, and they'd died; he'd trusted Sirius, and been betrayed. He'd trusted Dumbledore and he was the sole survivor of his House year; he'd trusted Alastor Moody and been abandoned. 

"Turn to the left."

He'd trusted Hobson, and after the bite she'd shunned him. He'd tried to trust Severus Snape and been thrust away.

"Five paces straight forward -- stop!"

Paces too wide, he thought, as he teetered on the fourth pace. He shortened his stride as she instructed him left, one pace, right, two paces, turn about and four in a curve to the left -- stop!

He was going to mis-step and fail the maze-walk if this kept up. He drew another deep breath.

Gabriel.

Gabriel hadn't betrayed him.

Granted, he hadn't had the chance, but Gabriel had known everything about him -- who he'd been, who his friends had been, what he was. 

And after all what was this, compared to that?

Gabriel, and after him Rufus, his father, men he loved and trusted; and after that, strangely enough, Alice Derwent. 

He began to move more cautiously, allowing her voice to guide him, growing surer as the sound of it grew closer. He could hear the Maze Bull's heavy breathing, the rustle of clothing as she moved to keep watching him while he slowly circled the centre. His footfalls fell faster now, and her words came quicker as well; his heart began to race with anticipation of the fight ahead. 

"Stop," she commanded, and he halted perfectly. "Turn to your left. Take one pace and come into the circle."

He stepped into the central circle of the maze and ripped off his blindfold as the crowd cheered. When he glanced around, he saw Rufus and Alice near one of the torches, but he was more concerned with the Queen, who ran past him into the maze, standing at the entrance as the Maze Bull faced him fully.

There wasn't any need for words, now; everyone understood what would happen. He dropped automatically into a wrestling crouch, and the Maze Bull did the same. Rationally he should have been thinking of tactics taught in Auror training, but all he could think of was the impending fight, throwing the Maze Bull to the ground, and a voice with a thick gallic accent saying quatre, advance, parry cinq, riposte quatre -- T'aurais gagné!

Their bodies came together with a dull thud as shoulder met chest, slightly off-centre. They grappled briefly, and Remus thrust the Maze Bull back; a charge nearly knocked him off his feet, but he danced out of the way and only caught a glancing blow in his side from the edge of one of the mask's horns. The ivy on his right arm ripped and came loose; he tugged the edge off and tangled it in the horns on the second charge, so that leaves hung in his eyes. Someone whistled in appreciation over the jeers and shouts of the crowd. 

They threw themselves bodily at each other once more, and this time Remus got a grip around the Maze Bull's shoulders, though the horn nearest his face was pressing dangerously close to breaking the skin behind his ear. He surged forward and felt the first full resistance; the Wicker Man was right, and the Maze Bull was going to try to win. He pushed once more, and heard the Maze Bull's feet scrabble in the dirt. They both had the same idea, and their legs locked at the knee as they tried to kick each others' legs out; if one of them went down now, both would, and that would destroy the tradition.

He bent his leg, hooking it around the Maze Bull's knee, and gave way suddenly; the Bull stumbled forward, and Remus danced away again. The Bull was between himself and the Queen, now, and limping a little; Remus' breath came hard, but the only injuries he had were some shredded ivy leaves and the lingering ache of a fast-healing cracked rib. 

"Give way," he urged softly, around the biteguards, and was rewarded with a bellow and another charge. This time he met the lowered head square in the chest, and heard gasps as the horns locked around his neck. A twist and he'd be thrown -- 

He tilted his shoulders and leaned back, then pushed up with his right leg and pivoted on his left; the Bull, caught off balance, hit the ground with a heavy thud, and Remus stumbled over him, righting himself fast enough to drop to his knees and wrap his left hand around the Bull's throat, the traditional victory sign. He saw the Bull's eyes darting beneath the mask, looking for a way out, but even the proudest of men would acknowledge the King of the Green's win, once the hand was around his throat. After a second, during which their eyes met, the Bull arched off the ground and let out a huge breath, doing a very convincing imitation of death as he slumped over. 

The cheering crowd fell silent. As one, the litter-bearers and Ladies covered the torches, dousing them and plunging the clearing into darkness, illuminated only by the light of a sliver of a crescent moon. 

Remus could hear the Bull rise and scramble out of the way, into the dark forest. He found his way to what he hoped was close to the centre of the circle, and met the Queen there, her white gown more visible than his own brown-painted body. 

There was a flicker of light as the Wicker Man struck a match and lit a candle; the rest of the court, mostly using lighters (rather sheepishly, it appeared) re-lit the torches as Hadrian limped forward again, carrying an ancient music-box that normally resided on Cole Greyson's mantlepiece. He lifted the lid, and a simple melody emerged.

Remus held out his hand, and the Queen accepted it, drawing perhaps a little closer than necessary as their feet fell easily into the steps of the waltz played on the music-box. He led, slowly swinging them wider and wider, until they were crossing the lines of the maze, slowly scuffing them into oblivion. They were joined, as soon as they'd passed into the maze, by the Court, the Litter-bearers and Ladies helping to destroy the carefully-laid maze. 

Then Cole Greyson led his partner into the dance as well, and Remus saw Rufus and Alice join in; soon anyone who had brought a partner was dancing, spreading the sand more or less evenly under their feet, while the Wicker Man watched impassively from his dais. When the music-box wound down, a fiddler struck up a more lively song, joined shortly by the odd little assemblage of musicians the town boasted -- a cellist, a flautist, and a penny-whistle player, plus a drummer with a tall drum between his knees. The dance picked up considerably, and Remus maneuvered the Queen carefully to the edges before stepping back entirely. 

"Are you tired?" the Queen asked softly.

He nodded, and held up two fingers. "We'll dance in a minute," she translated, and he gave her another nod, stripping off the crushed leaves and the loose-hanging vine until all that remained was a rather sad, mostly leafless stem twisting around his left arm. He dusted off his legs and britches, accepted a little water from a bottle Hadrian brought to wash his hands with, and took a deep breath. 

"I hate this part," the Queen said to him, laying a hand on his forearm. "Do we have to?"

He nodded again, and managed "S'traditional", though he garbled it somewhat. 

"It seems cruel," she murmured. He shrugged and held out his hand, leading her back into the mass of dancing bodies. The townsfolk made way for them, and they eventually ended the dance in front of the Wicker Man's dais. 

Remus helped the Queen back into her throne next to the bronze-masked man, and bowed to them both. He had never liked this part much either, but he recognised it as necessary, and as a child had possessed a slightly bloodthirsty attraction to it. 

The rest of the dancers bowed or curtsied to the dais, and Remus dropped once more to his knees. One of the litter-bearers came forward, pushing between his shoulder blades until he was bent, mask-to-wood, over the edge of the dais, neck bared to the Wicker Man.

He could feel the heavy footfalls of the Maze Bull, though he couldn't see anything but the grain of the wood beneath him, and precious little of that. 

_Sacrifice,_ he could almost hear in the air. Once upon a time, this had been a real thing; once upon a time the King of the Green had bent his head to the Wicker Man in the sure knowledge that in a moment an axe would strike the head from his shoulders.

His breath was shallow and fast, and he tensed his shoulders; the litter-bearer released his neck and he stayed where he was, awaiting the blow. 

The striking-stick was nothing more than painted balsa, and meant to snap; the Maze Bull, for all his pride, had been trained for this too, and brought it angling across the top of Remus' shoulders rather than his neck, though the audience wouldn't be able to tell the difference. There was a whoosh of something thin through the air and a sudden explosion in his ears, eerily reminiscent of a gunshot; he jerked out of instinct, but tradition took over, and as the Maze Bull had done, he slumped limply over as the wood split across the nape of his neck. 

His head was lifted by the hair, and the knotted cord around the back of his head undone; the crowd roared approval as the Maze Bull lifted his mask away and held it up as if it were his severed head. He could hear the Court unmasking, and then the Maze Bull, and finally the Wicker Man; the Queen had braided the silk into her hair, and couldn't remove hers, but he could imagine her rising and bowing to the crowd as they applauded.

The link was broken, and he felt fully Remus again, for the first time since putting on the mask. 

Finally there was a touch between his shoulders and a muscular arm helping him up. The Maze Bull shook his hand when he stood, and muttered "No hard feelings, mate," in his ear as he turned and bowed also, finally able to fully remove the ivy and duck his head under Hadrian's water-bottle, slicking sweaty hair back against his scalp. 

The musicians struck up again as the bonfire was lit and the celebration took over where the tradition had ended. Remus threw himself down on the edge of the dais, leaning back against the steps to watch. Food was being passed around, and children running wild through the dancers; there were also small flasks and larger jugs being subtly handed from person to person, and when one of them reached him he took a healthy gulp, wincing as the alcohol stung the chafe-marks where the bite-guards had cut his cheeks. He handed it up to the Wicker Man, who patted him on the shoulder and passed it on as well. Athena Smith was lurking around the edges, taking notes again; he leaned over to where the Maze Bull was lounging and pointed to her, and the Bull laughed.

"Sure enough, Lupin," the man said, rising and crossing to pull her into the circle, leaving her notebook on the dais for the Wicker Man's safekeeping. As Remus watched them go, Alice and Rufus emerged from the crowd.

"Well done, Remus!" Alice cried, and Rufus gave him an approving grin. "That was brilliant. By the end of the maze you were almost running!"

"I had a good Queen guiding me," he said, glancing up at where the Queen was sitting. She smiled down at him shyly. 

"Ask her to dance again, then," Alice urged. "A proper dance this time, not the traditional one. Go on, Helen, you know you want to," she added, to the Queen. 

"Have a dance?" Remus inquired, and she joined him in the clearing. Someone pressed a flask on him again, and he drained the last bit that remained before they swung into a fast-dance with some of the younger townspeople. 

After that there were the Ladies of the court to dance with, and as King of the Green it was more or less his duty to have at least one song with anyone who wanted to dance. He didn't lack for partners, though he would have been grateful for shoes, since dancing barefoot had its own perils. He should have brought boots with him, and perhaps a shirt as well, though he was warm enough if he stayed near the bonfire. Most of the children had gathered there, cheerfully setting marshmallows ablaze and tossing nuts into the fire to tell their future with -- led by Hadrian, who had stripped out of his costume and was enjoying the explosions. In the darkness, with the paint still staining his skin, his scars were barely visible. If anyone noticed them, no-one commented on them; they were all used, by now, to the gouge in his neck, and the stripes across his face. 

Athena Smith had apparently been pulled into the celebration entirely; not very scholarly of her, but then she'd done most of her research beforehand, he imagined. He gave her current partner a mischievous look as he cut in for the next dance, and offered her a cup of wine from the cask nearby. 

"Discover anything new?" he asked, as she sipped it. 

"Many things," she answered, setting the cup down on the table as they passed, pausing in the dance for a moment. 

"Such as?"

"You're awfully good at pretending to die."

"I've seen it enough," he said, before thinking. 

"Have you now?"

"Once or twice."

"Adds a dimension of realism, I suppose," she observed. "Did you enjoy it?"

"It's not really something one enjoys. One appreciates the experience, or doesn't."

"And do you?"

"I do."

"The Maze Bull didn't want to lose, did he."

"No, he didn't."

"Are you hurt at all?"

"Not really, no. I'll be sore a little while, I suppose."

"Is it magic?"

"Of a sort."

"Not our sort?"

"No, not our sort."

"Do you ever think about Harry Potter?"

"Not as often as I should," he said, before he'd thought about it. Her questions had been so rapid-fire that he'd been answering automatically, and the words had escaped while his mind was elsewhere. He stopped moving, in the middle of the dance floor, and stepped away from her.

"I was curious and didn't know how else to ask," she explained. 

"You'd have done better to stifle your curiousity, I think," he answered coldly, backing away -- into a dancing couple, who laughed and shoved him a bit. "I don't think you should stay too much longer," he hissed. She looked stunned, but he didn't care; he fled the dancing-circle, reaching the far side of the bonfire before stopping. He was shivering, and the flames didn't warm him any longer. It was his duty to stay until the celebration was done, but he wanted to keep as far away from Athena Smith as possible. 

"Remus?"

He turned, nerves strung so tightly that he almost fell into defensive posture from his Auror training; it was only Alice, carrying a thick brown jumper and trailed by Hadrian, who had a rag and a bowlful of water. 

"Are you all right?" she asked. "I scrounged a jumper for you, but you have to wash first..."

"Oh -- er, thank you," he said, accepting the bowl and rag, cleaning the paint off sloppily, spilling water on the ground. Hadrian and Alice waited until he was done, and then Alice took the rag, gently brushing away a few streaks he'd missed. It had been a long time since anyone had touched him when they hadn't actively been trying to kill him, and it was a strange sensation. 

"Thanks," he repeated stupidly, as he struggled into the jumper. It was slightly too big, but all the more welcome for that. 

"Hadrian, take those back to the table, there's a boy, and then you can run on and join your friends," Alice ordered, and Hadrian vanished with a shy grin at Remus. "He was very impressed with you tonight."

"He didn't do badly himself," Remus answered, adjusting the fall of the jumper across his shoulders.

"It was a good year, wasn't it? Everything went very well."

He shrugged. She smiled at him. 

"Now, Remus, are you going to give me a dance?" she asked. "You've danced with everyone else, and your father's busy minding the children..."

"If you like," he said. She offered him her hand, and he followed her back into the crowd, which was thinning a little as people drifted over to the food. 

She was a competent dancer, if not a great one, and he let her lead, since she seemed to want to. He felt warm and clean, and somewhat satisfied; the wash and warm clothing had been exactly what he needed after the shock of Alice's question and his own answer.

_Not as often as I should,_ he'd said. It was true he'd forgotten Harry's birthday, but it wasn't as though he had any claim on the boy. Or responsibility to him, for that matter. Not even as much a one as he had to Hadrian, who was as good as his brother. Harry and Hadrian would be about the same age...

"You look exhausted," Alice observed. "Are you feeling all right?"

"Yes -- fine. Bit sore, that's all," he lied. "Cup or two of wine will set me right."


	6. Chapter 6

The good company of Alice's dance and a cupful of alcohol did help Remus gain his equilibrium, as did the warmth of the jumper. The chill shock of Athena Smith's questioning faded as his muscles forcibly relaxed under the influence of the wine, and it occurred to him that, although it was well-spread-out, he'd had an awful lot to drink this evening. 

Children were being taken home, some of them already asleep on their parents' shoulders, some asking if they couldn't stay another few minutes. The older celebrators were leaving as well, thinning the crowd to people Remus' age, some a little older, some a little younger, plus a few delinquents from the next town over whose parents probably didn't know they were there. He saw his father leave with Hadrian and Alice, and reckoned they were staying at the farm tonight; his father carried a carton which probably contained most of the masks. 

The Queen was still wearing hers, but then it had been braided into her hair and probably wouldn't be undone until her hair was. He remembered being seventeen, away from school on a special pass, admiring the intricate twining of rich black hair and pale silk on the Queen that year. He'd tried a line on her about how the Queen used to do fertility rites in the field, a line that was far older than he himself was, and been gently rebuffed; two years later Sirius had made the line work -- 

He would not think about Sirius tonight, but the walls he built around his former life wre dissolving in the second cup of wine, and with them some of his self control. When a woman slipped up to him and tried a line about the Green Man's virility, he let himself fall for it, and gallantly brought her a cup of wine as well, as they stood near the slowly-burning-down bonfire and watched the dancers, the knots of people who had broken up into small groups to talk, the shadowy pairs slowly disappearing into the trees. 

This was something he'd wanted to give Gabriel, some day. He'd wanted to show him the Masques. He'd shown James and Lily, Peter, Sirius -- shown them all one year, since they'd been curious. Lily with her big green eyes, an impossibly lovely woman on James' arm, saying to Remus how wonderful it was, that Muggles could do magic too when they wanted. Peter, astoundingly drunk, and Sirius only a little less so, singing ribald songs -- 

There went the songs, he thought, as a couple of rowdy young men burst into off-key verse.

"They sing that every year," said the girl he was standing with. 

"A part of the tradition," he answered.

"Is it?" she linked her arm in his. "I guess the whole night is tradition, when you get down to it."

"All of it," he agreed, knowing where this, too, was going; another sort of dance than the maze-walk, another sort of fight than the battle with the Maze Bull. 

"You know what else is traditional," the girl murmured, and the hand that had been lying on his wrist where their arms were linked slid down his thigh. 

"Tell me," he said, without preamble, "Have you ever had sex in the forest?"

She laughed, and it was a nice enough laugh. And she was pretty, and it was...after all...tradition.

Neither of them noticed the name he said, as they writhed together on a soft patch of grass in the darkened forest, as she gasped encouragements and he lost himself inside her -- 

The name wasn't hers. If she had listened she might have thought it was a girlfriend somewhere, but it wasn't; if he had heard himself over the rush of orgasm, he might have thought it was a drunken mistake, but he would have known better, even if he wouldn't have admitted it.

And he certainly wouldn't have admitted it, if he knew.

Remus woke sometime in the night, shivering with cold, and gathered his clothing about him; the girl had already gone. He pulled on the trousers for what warmth they'd give him, and the jumper, now damp from dew. He staggered out into the clearing, but the bonfire had been doused, and even the most -- he laughed rather shiveringly at the idea -- even the most die-hard traditionalist had gone home. The maze was gone; the dais, in the dark, merely a hulking shadow. 

The walk home made sure that any alcohol left in his system was well gone by the time he arrived. The house was dark, except for the porch-light and a light in his room. Thoughtful of his father to leave that, and also not to wait up to scold him. Then again, he was a grown man, which his father knew, and anyway his father had Alice -- wise to be traditional in one's own bed, rather than a cold patch of grass in the middle of the countryside. 

He didn't blame him. If he had Alice -- 

Well, if he had Alice, he answered himself sternly, he'd have strangled Hadrian by now. That was no way to be thinking about his...well, his stepmother, for all intents and purposes, even if she was only five years older than he was. 

He made his way up to the house, pausing at the bottom step up to the porch. Twenty three years ago he'd stood here when the werewolf had clamped its jaws around his leg. His father had beaten it away from his son with the rifle stock until it splintered, until he was bludgeoning the creature with the naked steel barrel. Seventeen years ago he'd stood here with his trunk and his books and his wand and gone off to Hogwarts, where he locked himself up every month to keep from eating his fellow students. Twelve years ago he'd had his picture taken here in his dress robes, holding his NEWTs scores, while his father admired them. Where had that picture gone, he wondered. 

Eight years ago he'd crossed here on his way to America -- anywhere to escape the photographs, the reporters, the whispers, the memories of James and Lily and Peter, slain by a man he'd trusted and been betrayed by once already before.

It was a night for history, it seemed.

He climbed the steps to the door, let himself inside and walked softly up to his room, easing the door open so as not to wake anyone -- Hadrian was almost certainly in the guest-bedroom next to his, and Rufus and Alice across the hall. 

If he had Alice, he thought, picking up the thread of internal monologue where he'd left off, he wouldn't have stayed even as long as Rufus had at the bonfire. He shucked his trousers and the jumper and climbed naked between the fresh, clean sheets. No, he would have left much sooner. He wouldn't be at the farm at all, in fact; he'd have moved into the little flat above Alice's bookshop and sod the farm, hired a manager to run it. 

Not a bad idea, he thought sleepily, wrapping himself in the blankets and staring idly at his left hand, stretched on the pillow next to him. He'd talk to Rufus about in the morning. Rufus could move into town and he, Remus, would run the farm; he'd never have to deal with anyone outside of crop buyers and farm hands ever again. It would be peaceful, quiet, and calm; a perfect stasis, nothing changing, no-one leaving because there was no-one to leave. Just him and the chickens. 

That's what he'd do. 

***

He was woken the next morning by his father, who shook his shoulder and forced some pepper-up potion down his throat before he even managed to sit up. Remus clapped his hands over his smoking ears and shouted something that Hadrian probably shouldn't have heard, picked up from a very nasty street pimp he'd encountered as an Auror in Australia. 

"Language!" his father grunted, setting the empty (but still steaming) cup on his bedside table. The tingle of the potion faded, and Remus blinked up at his father confusedly. "Good to see you made it home in one piece. I had my doubts."

"Thanks for leaving a light on," Remus managed, sitting up. Rufus clapped him on the shoulder and grinned.

"I hope you got the young lady's name," he said gently. Remus blushed to the tips of his ears. "We were all young once, lad. No shame in it."

"Tradition," Remus mumbled. Rufus laughed and picked up the goblet.

"There's breakfast downstairs," he said as he left. "Get a move on, Lupin!"

"Yes, dad," Remus sighed, sliding out of bed and fumbling for clothing. There had been something he wanted to tell his father, or ask him -- some plan he'd had, in his addled brain the night before. Probably foolish; just as well to discard it, but it had seemed like such a good idea at the time.

He padded into the kitchen in pyjama pants and the same brown jumper from the night before, hastily tidied with a cleaning spell. Hadrian giggled at his appearance, but Rufus merely kicked a chair out from the table and spooned some potatoes onto his plate. Alice looked up from her perusal of the Daily Prophet, gave him a smile, and returned to her reading. Remus felt a pang of guilt, but he couldn't for the life of him figure out why; he hadn't done anything wrong. 

"You did very well at the Masques last night," Alice said, as if she was reading his mind. "Everyone said so. Cole Greyson said that was the best fight he'd seen in years."

"Thanks," Remus mumbled, around a mouthful of egg. 

"Hadrian was that impressed, weren't you?" Alice asked, tousling Hadrian's hair. The boy scowled, but nodded at Remus. "Going to be King of the Green yourself some day."

"Naw," Hadrian said. "I'm gonna be the Maze Bull. He got to chop your head off," he said to Remus, who smirked.

"All the pretty girls like the King of the Green," Remus replied. Hadrian made a face. "You think that now, but you wait a few years," he added, and felt the strange stab of guilt once more. He put it down to anonymous sex with a town-girl he barely knew, and stared at his breakfast. 

"Well, you did a good job as Page," Alice continued. "And I imagine the Queen couldn't ask for a more pleasant dance partner. Maybe one," she added, and gave Rufus a sidelong grin, which he returned. Remus wondered if Hadrian was old enough to notice, and glanced at the boy. 

Hadrian was building a castle out of scrambled eggs, with fried-bread soldiers for support posts. 

Remus had a moment of surreality; for just a second he felt as though he was the only person in the world who was actually real, and the loneliness threatened to strangle him. It lasted barely a second, hardly long enough for him to even feel it, but the yawning chasm was there, and he felt himself look into it. 

And heard himself think _my god, that's inside of me._

When he looked away from the pit, which for that single moment had been very real and very frightening, he met Alice's eyes. 

"Remus?" she asked. "Are you all right? You seem quiet."

"Boy's just tired. I would be too," Rufus answered, but Alice didn't look away. Remus shrugged.

"It's exhausting, isn't it?" he said, with a despairing sort of calm. "I think I might sleep a bit more after breakfast, unless I'm needed."

"Harvest is in, wood's cut, masks're all put up, save the Queen's mask, but Alice says she'll pick it up in town," Rufus replied with a shrug. "Sleep if you like."

"Ta. Yell if I'm needed," Remus said, taking a final bite of his breakfast, which tasted rather like sawdust in his mouth. He suppressed the urge to bolt as he stood and left the table. He did feel tired, with the thick-headed blurryness that comes of physical fatigue; perhaps all he needed was a few days' rest after the hubbub of the Masques.

He lay in bed, drowsing for some time, but every time he drifted off he saw the chasm again, and sometimes it had Lacon Chaney's face in it, staring up at him. 

***

Autumn had passed into winter almost before the Masques, and the last dead leaves froze and cracked to dust and blew away soon enough. The farmhands had long since left the barn, but Remus preferred the dim cellar for his full moons; he couldn't be accidentally heard there, the thick stone effective soundproofing, and there was no wood to splinter into his fingers. 

He regularly woke from the full moon nights with fingernails that cracked and bled, causing Alice to scold him for being a nail-biter. She and Hadrian were at the farm rarely, but there wasn't much to do in the winter months other than see to the animals, and he and Rufus went into town more often. Around the time Augusta came home from Beauxbatons for Christmas, Remus got a job in one of the High Street shops, helping to stock merchandise while the usual stockboys worked the tills overrun by holiday shoppers. 

The work kept him in town except for weekends and full moons, and he rented a little room above the pub, though Alice had offered a bed and half of Hadrian's bedroom in her little flat. He declined, half because it would have meant sharing rooms with a ten year old, half because -- 

Well, he didn't want to live with Alice. It wasn't anything she did, or a dislike of her; it was just that he didn't, and that was all. 

He did like Alice, he decided. She was intelligent, and like him she'd seen her share of trouble young; she was settled, and he envied her that, her secure existence with her books and children and his father. Meanwhile, he was nearly thirty and stocking shelves in the back of a shop, because the shopkeeper didn't mind that he took a few days off every four weeks. 

He saw Alice even more often than his father did, he realised one day; he usually went up to the bookshop on his lunch breaks and brought sandwiches for them, in return for a few quiet minutes with a book. His salary was barely covering his room and meals, but it wasn't, all in all, a bad existence. Certainly more peaceful than being an Auror, and less stressful than teaching. When he mentioned it to her, she smiled and shrugged.

"We always see each other less, in winter," she answered. "Roads're bad this time of year, and there's a lot more business -- I can't get away as often."

"Hard on you."

"Harder on Rufus, I imagine. You know how it is, he never complains, but I can't help thinking it's lonely."

Remus leaned against the counter, feeling Hadrian tug on his sleeve, trying to pull him away. "I never considered it lonely," he replied. Hadrian yanked on his sleeve again. "Not now, Hadrian."

"Really?" Alice asked. "That big empty house, and no-one else around to talk to?"

"You'll make me feel guilty in a minute. Hadrian, what is it?"

"Come play chess with us," Hadrian insisted.

"In a little while. I'll come upstairs," Remus answered, and Hadrian gave him a wide grin before clumping up the stairs. He heard, over their heads, footsteps cross the floor and a closet being opened. He turned back to Alice. "There's plenty to do, still. Letters to write and all."

"And you Lupins are not the most sociable of men," she added. He ducked his head.

"I suppose not," he replied. "Does it bother you?"

She gave him a warm smile. "As long as the pair of you are sociable enough to come to dinner occasionally, no."

Remus felt a very worrying warmth in the pit of his stomach at that smile. 

"Rufus and I have our own places," she continued, oblivious. "It's always worked best that way. It's nice to see you coming round more often, though."

"I'd better go see to Hadrian and Augusta before they wreck something," Remus said abruptly, and before she could answer he'd run swiftly up the stairs, arriving just in time to mediate a dispute over who got to be what colour. He was unaccountably relieved to have escaped to the tedious but easily-solved rivalry of Alice's children.

His job ended in early January, and he moved back to the farm. If his father had been lonely or missed his presence, he didn't say, but Remus couldn't imagine he had, much; he had been absent for years before now, and though they had written regularly, his father was a self-sufficient man. Augusta returned to Beauxbatons and Alice closed the shop for two weeks in the post-holiday lull, to come out to the farm for a holiday with Hadrian. It was...comfortable, in a way, though it made Remus uneasy. Comfort, he found, was usually the last stage before a major upheaval, and so he stayed vigilant. They wouldn't be there during the full moon, thankfully, but it came barely two days after they were supposed to leave, which was too close for his liking. 

Sooner or later Alice would have to be told, but not just yet. If it came down to a fear for her children -- and Remus wouldn't blame her -- he would leave them to their domestic bliss and stop causing trouble. He'd left before, after all.

Their holiday at the Lupin farm went well, in all. Remus kept to himself, reading and doing small chores his father was getting to be too old and stiff for; Hadrian learned to feed the chickens instead of harassing them, and together he and Hadrian mucked out the barn to prepare it for the spring. The day before Alice and Hadrian were to leave, Rufus suggested an overnight hunting expedition out at the far end of their lands, and Hadrian eagerly agreed; Remus declined, his muscles already feeling the pull of the full moon and aching on account of it. 

He hadn't realised Alice would stay behind also, or he might have gone anyway; it was awkward, just the two of them in the house.

"Remus!" she called up to him, a few hours after Hadrian and Rufus had tramped off into the slowly setting sun. He put his head out his bedroom door and found her at the bottom of the stairs. "Are you coming down to dinner?"

"Dinner?" he asked.

"I've made soup."

He emerged hesitantly and descended, following her into the kitchen. "I thought we'd just cook for ourselves," he mumbled, as she handed him a steaming bowl. 

"Well, it's as easy to cook for two as for one, and you've been doing a lot of the cooking lately -- plus you look worn out," she added, following him to the kitchen table. "Are you sure you're all right?"

"It comes and goes, it's nothing," he said, and the excuse still made him vaguely bitter every time he said it, though he'd been saying it since he was eleven. _Sick again, Remus? Oh, it comes and goes, Professor..._

"Well, eat up, and I'm sure it'll be gone before you know it," she said. "I was wondering if you'd show me the north garden after dinner, Rufus said Hadrian and I could plant some rose-bushes there in the spring."

"Hope you're planning on planting hearty ones," Remus said, adding some crackers to his soup. "The soil's not very good. We can plow it up and mix in some fertiliser before we plant, and perhaps cast a few greenhouse charms to keep the roses at an even temperature, but they're never going to be the same as actual hothouse roses."

"Oh, I don't care," Alice said. "I just thought it might be nice to fill up the empty plot, and then we'll have roses whenever we come to visit you two."

Remus nodded into his meal, and they finished in comfortable silence -- perhaps a little too comfortable, but then he was trying to ignore that. 

The North Garden had once been some kind of livestock yard, or possibly a vegetable garden back before the southern farmlands had been added to the Lupin plot. It was a little walled-in space hidden mostly by hedges, with crusty, dusty dirt that didn't look as if it could support weeds, much less rosebushes. It was chilly in the evening, and the rustling of the wind-blown hedges was almost eerie. Alice rubbed her arms as she inspected it, kicking the dirt, peering at the fencing, and pacing out the size of the garden.

"It looks like someone ought to be buried here," she said, almost cheerfully. He mmhm'ed an answer, watching the way her hips moved as she paced, until she turned over her shoulder to glance at him. "Nobody is buried here, are they?"

"Not that I know of, but you know how the older generations were. Live on the farm, die on the farm. If we plow up any bones I'll make sure we put them back," he added lightly.

"You're not going to bring the big plow into this little place, are you?"

"No," he said, as she returned to the entrance, noting the measurements in a little book she took from her pocket. "Reckon I'll bring out one of the old iron plows and do a bit of charmwork with it."

"You?" she asked curiously.

"Why not?"

"I just assumed Rufus would be the one helping more. You seem to avoid us, when you can."

"That's not true," he said, then amended, "Not anymore. I came to see you all the time over the holiday, didn't I?"

"I suppose you did," she answered teasingly. "And brought us food to keep us quiet while you escaped with a book."

"I don't hate you, Alice."

"I know you don't," she said, tapping the notebook against his arm playfully. "Not anymore. I just never know how to read you, Remus. You're very self-contained."

"Believe me, that's a good thing," he murmured. "We should be getting back before it's too dark to see."

"The moon's almost full," she said, pointing as it slipped above the line of the hedges. Remus felt it like a tug on a marionette's strings, and had to keep himself from twitching. "We'll have plenty of light."

"I hate the moonlight," he answered.

"Why? I love it," she said, stretching her arms. "It makes everything seem -- "

" -- ghostly," he finished. "And strange. It distorts things."

"Do you think so?" she asked, facing him again. He ducked his head.

"I just don't think it's the great shakes everyone's always talking about. Poets and playwrights and singers. It makes things false."

She smiled. "I don't think I've ever heard you so passionate about anything."

He felt an ache blossom in his chest, a sudden homesickness that was unrelated to where home was, but rather to where comfort might be; he didn't want to be here, didn't want to have to walk back, he just wanted to hide somewhere. He felt dizzy under the moon, and lost in the silvery landscape it created.

Desperately, he pulled Alice forward by the wrist and kissed her, his right palm touching her cheek, left hand holding hers against his shoulder. The feel of soft curving breasts against his chest was marvelous, and the sway of her hips against his, unfamiliar as the feeling was, flooded his body with sensation. The slightly salty taste of her lips -- 

She wasn't kissing him back. 

She pulled away just as he realised this, and his reflexes were fast enough that he didn't think she'd noticed the absolute iron grip with which he'd held her against him before he let her go. He came to his senses as though she'd slapped him, which she might have done, as oblivious to the world as he had been.

They regarded each other across the expanse of near-sterile soil, her eyes wide in shock, his breath coming shallow and almost panicked. She moved forward slowly, until they were close -- not as close as they had been, but nearly. She touched his arm.

"Remus," she said quietly. "I'm so sorry."

He put a hand up to cover his eyes; he'd half-expected it, but one never really thinks one may be pushed aside until the words are spoken.

"No, you have my apologies," he managed, voice cracking slightly on the last word.

"I had no idea -- "

"Please, Alice, it was a slip in judgement," he said quickly, the words coming from some other Remus far away. "It was nothing. I'm quite sorry."

"Remus, I love your father -- "

"I know -- "

" -- and I loved him first," she continued. "Even if I didn't love him best, we have a life together, a past together. And I do love him best."

He nodded, hand drifting down to wipe his mouth, to try and brush her taste off his lips. 

"Alice, please believe me, it was -- I didn't mean it," he said, though he had, and even all the lies he'd told couldn't have prepared him for the magnitude of this one. "It was the moon," he added, almost whimsically, and she gave him a small smile. "I told you it makes things false. Don't -- I was just lonely," he said, hoping this confession would cover the larger sin. 

"Of course," she agreed, still rubbing his arm. "It must be very hard on you. I understand."

"We should go back to the farmhouse," he said. "I...think that would be wisest."

"I agree."

"And...I'd prefer it if you didn't tell my father. I should, if anyone does."

"I see no reason he needs to know, not from me. Anymore than he would need to know if you spilled soup, or tore a shirt," she said, and he sighed, relieved. 

"I am sorry," he said, as they started the walk back to the house.

"I know," she answered, and the tone of her voice told him he hadn't fooled her in the slightest. 

They were silent the rest of the way home.

***

Rufus and Hadrian returned through the fields the next afternoon, carrying three dead hares and a live turtle they'd come across. Remus was sitting on the back porch, nursing a firewhiskey. When Rufus saw his face, he sent Hadrian inside and stayed on the back porch, crossing his arms. Remus silently offered him a drink, and he took it; after a few sips, he set it down on the railing.

"What did she say to you?" he asked. Remus looked away. "I know, Remus. I'm your father, I've watched you fall in love before. What did she say to you when you told her?"

"I didn't tell her," Remus answered, eyes fixing on a distant point in the southern horizon. "I kissed her."

"I see."

Remus looked up at that, and saw the fear and worry in his father's face. He realised his father was actually afraid that Alice might have chosen him.

"She didn't kiss me back," he added. "She said she loves you best."

Lupin men were very good at self control. Barely a flicker of triumph passed through his father's eyes, followed closely by sympathy. And, perhaps, just a little pity. 

"I'll stay until spring planting's done," Remus continued, sipping his firewhiskey. "Then I'll go."

"You needn't," his father said softly.

"Yes, I rather think I do," Remus answered. Rufus drained his drink, and crossed his arms.

"If it was between her and you, Remus, you're my son -- "

"It's not. I wouldn't make you choose."

Rufus nodded. "If you change your mind between now and the end of planting, you've only to say so."

He went inside, and Remus heard Alice's joyful greeting; their low voices for a minute, interrupted by Hadrian, and then silence as they moved into the kitchen, where Rufus would no doubt be dressing the hares for cooking.

Remus bent forward and rested his face in his hands, not weeping, merely thinking. He stayed there, slouched in the late afternoon light, until he was called in to dinner.

***

"There's just one last thing," Remus had said, as he was being shown to the door by the matron of the house. 

She'd stopped, and turned to look at him, her perfectly-made-up face mildly questioning. 

"I think you ought to know before you make your decision," he'd said.

"I don't see that there's anything that could keep us from hiring you, Mister Lupin," she'd replied with a laugh. He'd smiled, because she so patently expected it.

"I have a...medical condition," he'd said delicately. "Nothing contagious or progressive; it's a small matter, really, but I require treatment every four weeks, and I'll have to be absent for two or three days. I can give you the dates in advance for the next year," he added. 

This line -- possibly, he was willing to admit, in conjunction with two vicious facial scars -- had lost him the three previous jobs he'd applied for; two because it wasn't believed he wouldn't somehow infect their precious children, one because that would leave the shop short-handed three days a month. One had been with a school, too, and he could probably have cried discrimination, but why make trouble? He wouldn't take the job if it was given, if he had to sue them to get it.

Unlike the other mother, who had kept her face carefully (a little too carefully) blank, this woman raised her eyebrows a fraction -- as much as she was able to, given a recent face-lift, he decided -- and drew them together slightly.

"It's predictable and controllable, and I don't have any special dietary requirements," he'd added. He had a whimsical image of planning out his menu for the week with "fresh human" listed under the full moon days. 

"That shouldn't be a problem, if you're as reliable as your references say," she'd said with a smile, finally. "We'll notify you of our decision tomorrow; you were the last of the tutors to be interviewed."

"Thank you, Ms. Edwards-Clarke," he'd replied, and begun to brace himself against the rejection he'd likely get on the following day.

Now he lay in the little hostel-room he'd rented for a few quid, in the bottom bunk, and stared at the slats of the bed above him. Yes, his references were excellent. One from Anson in Australia, attesting his fitness for physical activity as a former police officer with the Australian service; one from Alice attesting to his work ethic, though he'd never worked in her shop. In addition there was a somewhat elderly one from Dumbledore, regarding his education and abilities. 

A tutoring job with a wealthy family seemed to be his best bet, and London seemed as good a start as any; it was comfortably far away from his father and Alice, and it was a big metropolitan city, easy to get lost in. 

Leaving home had been surprisingly easy. When the planting ended, he'd simply begun packing. Saying goodbye to his father wasn't difficult; he'd left a short note for Augusta and Hadrian, promising to send them something from London, and hadn't said goodbye to Alice, who was good and understanding and would no doubt be slightly relieved to have him off the farm and out of their lives. He didn't blame her. 

The hardest part had little to do with either leaving or the reasons behind leaving; it was, ludicrously, a bit of baggage.

He'd been considering using his old Hogwarts trunk, though it seemed a little large for his needs and he had no desire at all to clean it out. He'd been standing in front of his bed, piled neatly with folded clothes, books, odds and ends, and a few small boxes from his youth he hadn't wanted to open, when his father knocked on the door. Remus grunted permission to enter, and Rufus pushed the door open, carrying a plain brown package in one hand. 

"Had it in the coat closet," he explained, giving it to Remus. "Forgot to give it to you sooner -- customs form says it's a suitcase. It might be useful," he added, apologetically. Remus turned it over and over in his hands. 

American postmark. Green customs form, Muggle post -- well, that was wise, if it was transatlantic. Familiar handwriting -- 

Gabriel. 

He sucked in a breath, sharply.

"I'll go, if you like," his father said. Remus, after a stunned moment, shook his head. 

"It's nothing," he said, tearing off the brown paper. Yes; his old suitcase, a gift from his students at the Academy, reading Professor R.J. Lupin across the top. His father smiled.

"That's as good a reference as any, a suitcase labeled that," Rufus said. Remus studied the lettering, which had begun to peel and chip a little.

"I suppose so," he said softly. He laid it on the bed and flipped the latches, opening it; tucked inside a flap were a few books, tied together with string. His father didn't ask this time; he merely faded back into the hallway, and Remus hardly heard his footsteps down the stairs. 

He looked through the books, recognising the handwriting in the margins as his, before he put them on the book-pile on his bed, and began to pack his clothing into the suitcase. 

And he'd left and caught a train to London, found a hostel to stay in and begun scanning the "better papers" for jobs. It was hard to even get an interview without a recommendation, but he'd managed. He had one up on most of the tutors who wanted to work for the wealthy families in the area: he'd been a police officer, and could serve as a bodyguard as well. 

London was large and frightening, not a city he was at all familiar with, but then he'd learned his way around America, which was even larger and more frightening; he'd learned Sydney too, eventually. So he did what he had to. He always did what he had to, in fact; just once it would be nice to do what he wanted to. 

He haunted the telephone in the hostel's common-room all day; it was the only telephone number he'd been able to give to Ms. Edwards-Clarke. He spent the time making a list of new jobs he could apply for -- pathetically short -- and reading the rest of the paper as well. He could have picked up a Prophet, if he'd gone down to the Leaky Cauldron, but he'd learned his lesson in Sydney, and he wanted to stay away from wizarding society for a while. 

The telephone rang around two in the afternoon. He scrambled for it, despite knowing what she would say. 

"Mr. Lupin," Ms. Edwards-Clarke said, smoothly. "I'm calling to notify you that we've selected you for the position of tutor for our children. I'd like you to come tomorrow to have brunch with us, to discuss the job requirements; I've spoken with my husband and there are some requests we'd like to make of you before you accept the position."

"Of -- of course," he'd stammered, shocked. The calm acceptance of a rejection had already been on his lips, and he could hardly believe his luck. "My day is open; name your time."

"Ten-thirty should be fine," she replied, and he agreed that he would be there. 

A job. He had a job. With room and board paid, and he would never have to try to kill anyone. Well, theoretically. Glorified babysitter perhaps, but there were worse jobs than trying to cram Latin and English Grammar and Fencing between the ears of the future leaders of the country. 

He ran back to the bunk-room and undid the magical sticking charm on his locker door, digging through his clothing for his best white shirt. He had no tie or appropriate jacket, but his black Auror trousers would do, and he had ninety-two Muggle pounds in his wallet. He could buy a tie and a cheap jacket between now and then. 

As he pulled out his shirt to hang it properly, so that it could air, one of the books Gabriel had sent him tumbled out, and he righted it carefully. Perhaps he owed this job to Gabriel; he'd taught him how to fence, after all. 

He was greeted at the door by the maid the next morning, in his new tie and white shirt and new jacket. She smiled at him and led him into a window-lined breakfast room, where Mr. and Ms. Edwards-Clarke were already drinking their tea. He hadn't met the husband before, and had the idea that Ms. Edwards-Clarke was the real head of the family, no matter that her husband worked for the government and she "merely ran the house". They reminded him strongly of Sirius' parents, minus the vitriol. 

There was dainty finger food to be eaten, but he was nervous and barely nibbled on what was put before him; odd that he could go hand-to-hand with street-punk Muggles in Sydney and yet be completely at a loss in an elegant town-house in London. Ms. Edwards-Clarke did all the talking, explaining that they wished to hire him to bodyguard the children as well as educate them, which he'd been expecting, and would like him to sleep in a room in the children's suite, which they understood some people found degrading and wanted to be sure he accepted. He would have slept in one of their racing-car beds if it meant he really had the job. 

The children themselves, whom he had yet to be introduced to, arrived at that point; Ackerley, the elder, was just turning ten, while his brother Chadwick was five-and-a-half. Remus let Chadwick (oh, what a name) climb into his lap and pick at his food, while Ackerley sat more politely at a chair brought by a butler and ate with a decorum Remus certainly hadn't had when he was Ackerley's age. 

"You see, Richard?" Ms. Edwards-Clarke said, pointing to Remus. "They love him already, don't you Chadwick?"

Chadwick, halfway through a bite of egg, looked up at her. 

"Is he our new Mr. Mason?" Ackerley asked. 

"Mr. Mason was their last tutor. He was...unacceptable," Ms. Edwards-Clarke said. She made a drinking motion with one hand, and Remus made the appropriately shocked face. 

"Do you want juice, mum?" Ackerley asked.

"No, sweetheart," Ms. Edwards-Clarke said. "Don't interrupt when grownups are talking."

Remus eyed Ackerley, who smiled hesitantly at him. 

"We were sure once you saw the boys you wouldn't be able to turn down the job," Mr. Edwards-Clarke said, getting a word in edgewise.

"They're charming lads," Remus answered. Chadwick offered him a piece of toast, and he ate it with a grin. 

"Of course they are," Ms. Edwards-Clarke said, stroking Ackerley's head with a perfectly-manicured hand. "Now they have a Governess, Miss Helit -- that's Susan Helit, I'll introduce you later, daughter of a duke, trying to make her own way in life, very nice girl -- who gets them up and dressed. You'll be expected to meet them for breakfast, and in the mornings they go to museums and parks. You'll accompany Miss Helit, and then the boys are in your care in the afternoons. Mr. Mason's lesson plans are available so that you can begin right where he left off. I believe you said you could start immediately?"

"This afternoon, if I have time to pack my belongings and bring them here," Remus replied.

"We'll send a driver with you," Ms. Edwards-Clarke said. "Will you need help lifting anything?"

Remus thought reservedly of his suitcase and haversack, neither one completely full. 

"No, I shouldn't think so," he said. 

***

When he arrived at the suite which was to be his -- a room which connected to the boys' bedroom and the hallway, with a private bath and balcony -- Ackerly and Chadwick were sitting on his bed, small pale faces upturned to his hopefully. He had taught children only a little older than Ackerly, but Chadwick would be something new and challenging, much younger than any child he'd previously encountered. 

They stared at him.

He stared at them.

"Well then," he said finally, and set his suitcase next to the bed. "You're Chackerly and Adwick, eh?"

Chadwick giggled. Ackerly looked solemn. 

"What do they call you on the playground?" Remus asked, hanging his haversack on the back of a chair that butted up against an old mahogany desk. It was neatly arranged with two pencils and two fairly expensive ballpoint pens in a small cup, a desk-set and a pile of papers labeled "Lesson Plans". 

"Ack," Ackerly said. "And Wick."

"Wise children," Remus answered. "You may call me Mr. Lupin, or Remus if your parents aren't listening," he added with a wink. He opened the suitcase and unpacked his precious few books, setting them on the shelf above the desk. "I imagine we'll be spending a lot of time together."

"Mr. Mason got thrown out," Wick supplied helpfully. "He broke bottles."

"He hit the bottle," Ack corrected. "That's what Mum said."

"Yes, well, I don't make a habit of hitting anything," Remus answered. 

"Where'd you get those marks on your face?" Ack asked. 

"Australia."

"How?"

"Got in a fight," Remus answered, amused a little by the boy's bluntness. "Are you going to watch me unpack everything, then?"

Ack nodded placidly.

"Pants and all?"

Both boys made faces.

"Here," Remus said, passing Ack his copy of Sherlock Holmes. "Entertain yourself, as I am not paid to entertain you until tomorrow morning. Wick, do you like spinny tops?"

"Spinny tops?" Wick asked. Remus removed a sneakoscope he'd picked up in Australia, dormant and dark in this house of bright windows and cheerful children, and gave it to him to play with, showing him how to spin it between his fingers. Ack had curled up on the bed at once with the book, and was reading with the fierce concentration of a child who is going to be required to make a vocabulary list later. 

Remus turned to his unpacking, sorting clothing into the dresser and wardrobe, papers into a drawer in the desk, toiletries on the bathroom sink. He was just coming back from hiding his Shearsides -- a dangerous toy in the hands of a child, even a Muggle child -- when he found a young woman in the room also, holding up his wand and examining it. She glanced over the top of it to meet his eyes with the most piercing stare he'd encountered in some time. 

"Lucky stick?" she asked, lifting an eyebrow. She had a pale face with a hint of a birthmark crossing one cheek, hair already white with only a streak of black running through it, curled tightly into a bun at the back of her head. She wore a plain dress that identified her immediately as Governess. Indeed, the word fit her the way it hadn't fit women since the Brontes, he suspected.

"You must be Miss Helit," he said, carefully disentangling her fingers from the wand and setting it on the high shelf, behind the books. Thank god she hadn't waved it about. "I was -- "

" -- warned about me?"

"Informed you would be here," he finished smoothly. "I've just been unpacking. Remus Lupin," he added, holding out his hand belatedly. She examined the scar across his thumb (third full moon of 1985, reopened sometime in 87, he thought it gave his hands character) before accepting it. She had a firm grip, but they didn't actually shake; merely gripped each others' hands and then dropped them.

"Susan Helit," she answered. "This is a very tiresome business so let's dispense with it promptly. Yes, I am the daughter of a Duke, no I have no ancestral lands, I prefer to make my own way in the world and I am not available for dinner Friday next."

"So noted," he said, gravely.

"Also, you are not to call the boys Ack or Wick. The former is an exclamation and the latter is a candle component," she said.

"Too late, I'm afraid. Ack and Wick they have called themselves and Ack and Wick they shall remain," he answered indifferently. He closed his suitcase, snapping the locks shut. "Do you really believe Ackerly and Chadwick are any less mortifying?"

"Those are their names, regrettably," Miss Helit said. 

"Very well, in the mornings they may be Ackerly and Chadwick when they are out with you at the museum and in the afternoons when they do their long-division they will be Ack and Wick."

"They're well-past long-division," Miss Helit said, not quickly but promptly. Remus gave Wick a dubious look. 

"Chadwick, what is eighty divided by eleven?" she asked, without turning around.

"Seven and a quarter and a bit," Wick answered.

"Would you like one biscuit 'and a bit' for tea?"

Wick sighed and looked up from the sneakoscope. "Seven point two seven three," he corrected.

Remus looked impressed.

"He's a prodigy," Miss Helit explained.

"Do his parents know?"

"Good lord no, they'd send him to some horrible school for prodigies somewhere and he'd never get to do anything else."

Remus gave her an appraising look. "I'm guessing the unlamented Mr. Mason...?"

"If you haven't studied much trigonometry I suggest you leave his mathematical education to me as Mr. Mason did, and concentrate on trying to get him to enjoy his history lessons," Miss Helit said bluntly. 

"Am I permitted to participate in the education of Master Ack?"

"Yeah, she's bored with me. I don't like science," Ack said. 

"Oh yes? Why not?"

"I like magic better. Turning lead into gold and things. This book is good, isn't it? It's all murder and clues."

"Take it with you then," Remus suggested, bemused by Ack's self-professed fondness for 'magic'. "I'll expect an oral report from you on the contents of the first story by dinner tomorrow."

Miss Helit looked approving, which surprised him; he didn't think proper governesses usually considered Sherlock Holmes appropriate bedtime reading for ten-year-olds.

"All right then," she said, helping Wick off the bed and taking the sneakoscope, pondering it for a second before placing it in Remus' outstretched palm. "Mr. Lupin has a lot to do to prepare for tomorrow's lessons, so let's leave him in peace for now and go see how your plants are growing. You'll find notes on the greenhouse project in the second folder down," she said to Remus, nodding at the pile of papers on the desk. "There's tea at three-thirty in the playroom and dinner at seven-thirty downstairs; the children eat with their parents and we generally have a sit-down with the cook and butler in the kitchen."

"I think I'll give tea a miss," he said, indicating the notes. "Should I be surprised if most of them aren't in Mr. Mason's handwriting?"

She gave him a brief, fleeting smile. "I'll see you at dinner, Mr. Lupin."

***

As he usually did, given a solid structure to live within, Remus fell into the house's schedule easily in his first months as the childrens' tutor. He rose early and washed, met Miss Helit and the children for breakfast at eight, escorted them wherever they wished to go in the mornings and generally had to carry Wick back by the time they were done. Lunch was usually sandwiches in the kitchen, and then Wick would typically fall asleep for an hour or so while Ack and Remus worked on his lessons. Miss Helit did maths with Wick, and then they all had a history lesson together after tea. Miss Helit called it "storytime", but it amounted to gory tales of beheading, chivalry, naval battles, peasant uprisings, and European revolutions with a few dates scattered in to make it legitimate. 

The house was large and beautiful, the garden big enough for two inquisitive children to entertain themselves in, and his life was, for once, on an even keel. It was a very secure house, to be sure, with walls and extra locks, thick windows that didn't open and an intercom system for calling into various rooms. Still, he found he didn't mind the security, and it was easy enough to slip by it with the quite legitimate monthly excuse that he was going for treatment for his illness. The boys always waved to him from the window as he left, and were usually quiet and respectful when he returned, a day later, the worst of the damage hidden or healed. 

It was clear that Miss Helit had been teaching them most of what they knew, and Remus wondered how even a man with Mr. Mason's reputation could have wasted so much of his time when there were two relatively keen young minds waiting to be informed about the world. Ack sped through his literary assignments, though he was lethargic at best when it came to anything related to science. Wick was apparently having trouble grasping trigonometry fully, but then Wick still made a mess trying to feed himself occasionally. 

Miss Helit herself sometimes seemed like a complex mathematical equation, all edges and symbols and numbers, but he had no real urge to solve it; if they were left alone together while the children played, he watched them closely and asked her questions to make small talk, nothing more. She learned that he was an only child from a farm in the north; he learned that she had played lacrosse at school and had a grandfather who kept a fishpond. There was a cool professional courtesy between them borne of her refusal to be anything other than a governess and his lack of desire to be anything other than a tutor. 

Still, after a while -- especially when, after his "treatments" every full moon, she brought chicken broth for him instead of biscuits with their tea -- he began to wonder just what Susan Helit was. It took a while to summon the tact and proper wording to ask her, but in January they were walking through a portrait gallery in a minor south London museum, and while Wick and Ack sat and contemplated a painting of a woman with an enormously prodigious nose, he shoved his hands in his pockets and glanced at her.

"Miss Helit, I have a rather personal question to ask you," he said. "If you don't mind."

"I won't go to the cinema with you tonight," she answered. He grinned; she didn't.

"That wasn't it at all, I'm afraid," he replied. "I was wondering what brought you to London. And these children in particular. Not that you're ill-fitted to the task, but you couldn't have known Wick was a prodigy, and I know you're better at maths than the average public-school girl."

She did smile then, but it wasn't a very reassuring one. "I suppose you're owed that much knowledge," she said cryptically. "My Grandfather -- "

"The old patriarch."

"Hmm, yes -- he has a way of knowing about people. He was in the house when the boys' grandfather died, and he asked if I wouldn't pop round and look after them for a few years."

"Just like that?"

"One doesn't say no to Grandfather. He had his reasons with Chadwick, but I rather thought he decided Ackerly could use an understanding ear as well, on occasion."

Remus glanced at her again before his eyes slid, as they were trained to do, back to the boys. Ack was posing as the large-nosed woman now, much to Wick's handclapping delight. 

"Oh? How so?"

"Oh, Ackerly's a wizard," Miss Helit replied, and Remus flinched.

"How do you mea -- "

"A wizard. Magic wands, silly robes, the whole bit. He's been making pencils dance around to entertain Chadwick since he was eight. I'm surprised he hasn't shown you yet, all things considered. You know."

Remus blinked. "How would I -- "

"Please don't assume I'm dense, you aren't any good at it. Grandfather probably arranged for you to be hired as well. He has a way with things like that. Normally Mrs. Edwards-Clarke would never hire anyone with a chronic disease, non-contagious or otherwise. But it's good for the boy to have one of his own kind to take him to the train in September."

"Are you one of us?" Remus asked, lowering his voice.

"Not precisely. It's neither here nor there, Mr. Lupin, as the point of the matter is that Ackerly's going off to Dogwarts or whatever that school is -- "

" -- Hogwarts -- "

"And someone's going to have to handle things with his parents. Buy his books and such. Certainly you can't picture Mrs. Edwards-Clarke even admitting what the school is."

Remus had to admit that either of the very proper Edwards-Clarkes would stand out like a sore thumb in Diagon Alley.

"Chadwick's perfectly normal, of course, hasn't shown a lick of magical ability, thank goodness. I suppose eventually someone's bound to find out about his maths, but by then hopefully he'll have mastered quantum physics and can pick a nice university to study at. In the meantime, Ackerly's just got to keep things under wraps until autumn." She sighed. "I'm so glad Grandfather picked someone with a little sense about Muggles. I suppose the werewolf bit can't be helped."

Remus tensed. "If you tell anyone -- "

"Like who?" she asked bluntly. "Our circles don't cross, Mr. Lupin, except in that we both teach the children. No-one who knows you would believe me, and no-one who would believe me knows you, so please don't pitch a fit in the middle of the gallery. Chadwick, Ackerly, next room if you please, you've made fun of that poor woman long enough."

"Who is your grandfather, anyway?" he asked, as they passed into the next room. "Is he a wizard?"

"Sort of, only not."

"And he knows the Edwards-Clarkes?"

"Oh yes. He knows everyone," she said, and moved towards the children to discuss what Ackerly called 'a really brilliant beheading'. 

***

Remus undressed for bed that night with less ease than usual, though his door was closed and windows shuttered. He felt as though Susan Helit had swiftly and carelessly stripped him bare, announcing all his secrets to him as though she'd read a book on his life. He'd been with the family almost ten months, and never a hint of strangeness had he seen from either her or Ack, though if she said the boy was a wizard, Remus was willing to believe it. A Muggle-born, but then Remus himself was half and half, so that was no matter. 

He'd known there was something odd about Miss Helit, but clearly she'd hidden it and he'd tried so desperately to have a normal life here (despite locking himself in an abandoned basement once a month to rip his own skin off) that he'd ignored it. Perhaps she was part veela, or somesuch. 

Not that it mattered. 

In May Ackerly would turn eleven, and his letter would probably come fairly soon thereafter; he would have to take the boy to Diagon Alley and then to the platform and the Hogwarts Express. Perhaps if he was lucky nobody else he knew would be -- 

Of course nobody else he knew would be there. Everyone he knew from Hogwarts -- everyone he knew at all well -- was dead.

He pulled the pyjama pants over his hips and fell onto the bed, staring at the ceiling, arms crooked above him. Would he have to talk to Ack about being a wizard? Was that expected of him? He had barely managed to make it through reproductive biology with the lad. 

Would he have to talk to Wick about not being a wizard? He didn't think Wick would mind, much. 

Didn't they send people to do this sort of thing, when the parents were oblivious Muggles? Perhaps he wouldn't have to do much, just hand the boy off to someone from the Ministry's Muggle-Relations department. That would be better for everyone, wouldn't it?

September was eight months away. Ack's whole lesson scheme would have to be rethought. More Latin, less Muggle history, some basic Wizarding history; an introduction to charms, since clearly Ack had mastered Wingardium Leviosa already....

He fell asleep revising the next day's lesson in his head; woke in the night, freezing, and crawled under the blankets to dream about art galleries and the slightly-too-knowing eyes of Susan Helit.

***

The Ministry did send a courier to deliver the Hogwarts letter, who sat with the Edwards-Clarkes for half an hour and explained Hogwarts to them as best they could understand it; they seemed to come away with the belief that it was some sort of specialised school for children interested in classical history and advanced scholarship. They brightened considerably when they discovered it was Mr. Lupin's alma mater, and by the end of the courier's visit, Remus had agreed to take the boy to Diagon Alley to buy his supplies, and put him on the Hogwarts Express. By then Ack was already comfortable with Wizarding history and slang, and seemed vaguely excited by the idea of actually doing magic instead of just reading about it, though Remus sensed he didn't truly believe he was going to get to do any magic.

He had wanted to spend the rest of his life avoiding Diagon Alley and most of the Wizarding World, but it appeared life had other plans, Remus thought ruefully. He was running out of things to avoid; his family, his heritage, his school, his past. Perhaps he was strong enough now, now that he didn't seem to feel anything anymore, to face them. 

So at the end of August he helped Ack into the long black car and told the chauffeur to take them to Charing Cross Road, and said he would catch a cab back the following day. They stood outside the Leaky Cauldron, in the late-summer heat that seemed to waver up from the sidewalk all around them.

"Right then, lad," Remus said, taking a deep breath. "Ready?"

"Yes, sir," Ack answered, staring at the dim little pub door distrustfully. Remus pushed it open, and followed him inside. 

The pub wasn't crowded at that time of day, before the rush for lunch, and one more man leading a young child through to Diagon Alley hardly drew any attention at all. Out the other side (Ack wide-eyed and grinning, now) they did get some strange looks for Remus' scars and their Muggle clothing, but nothing too far out of the ordinary for Remus. 

Books and supplies, robes and a trunk, and an owl to carry letters from the Hogsmeade post-office where the Muggle mail for students came; some sweets and a change from Muggle cash to Galleons and Sickles and Knuts, the money absolutely alien to him now. Alien to Ack too, who nevertheless seemed to enjoy every moment of it. Remus found he looked at the buildings with impunity; nostalgia didn't enter into it, nor did sorrow. It was simply a place he'd once been and now had to navigate again. He was rather pleased with himself. No-one seemed to know him and he didn't recognise many faces, but then that was perhaps not so unusual. 

No -- in all, he thought, as he slept in the bed next to Ack's, at a room over the Leaky Cauldron he'd reserved weeks ago, knowing that there would be precious little spare space come the end of August -- in all, the trip had gone well. Tomorrow he was taking Ack to the train, and then he'd catch a cab back to the house and have tea and do lessons with Wick. The Edwards-Clarkeses had promised him he would still have a job until Wick was ready to attend a proper preparatory school as well, and in the meantime he could tutor Ack on holidays, and help him with his school assignments if he really truly needed it.

And then it was morning, and in the whirl of wash-dress-bacon-and-eggs-get-to-the-station-and-find-the-platform-again, Remus kept his head and kept track of all of Ack's things, even the shirt he nearly forgot and the extra bag of owl treats that fell out on their way to the platform. He showed Ack the trick of getting through and followed him effortlessly, and still he felt nothing, merely the urgency of getting Ack onto the train on time. They carried the trunk between them and settled him in a compartment, with his owl cage on top and his wand safely tucked in his coat pocket. Remus gave him a few final instructions -- don't be afraid of the Sorting Hat, don't shake your wand without proper instruction, remember to change into your robes by twilight -- and left him there, already chatting with a few other boys and sharing around his Every Flavour Beans. 

He descended the steps of the train with a self-satisfied smirk; he had survived, and fared far better than he ever had as a student. In fact, he had -- 

"Oh, excuse me," said a redheaded woman, as she bumped into him while trying to help a younger boy with a distinct family resemblance try to navigate his cart. "There you are, Percy, I just want to see where Ron went, he's somewhere behind us -- "

Remus ducked away as the woman raised her hand to wave at another child, who waved back and nearly ran him down with the trolly he pushed. Remus stepped backwards quickly, cursing the crowds more than what appeared to be an enthusiastic first-year, and then dodged again as a second boy passed. The boy glanced up at him briefly, almost dismissively, and Remus froze.

Those were Lily's eyes.

Lily's green eyes in a young boy's face, with the same narrow jaw and slightly snub nose James had when he was eleven. The boy was forced to stop and wait while others boarded the train, and he leaned against the trolley's handle with James' indolent hip-tilt, brushing his hair off his forehead, tousled black hair like James had. 

_James_ , his mind whispered. _James, James and Lily, Lily and James._

The boy glanced over his shoulder, a trifle impatient, and Remus saw a hint of scarring on his forehead. James' forehead, Lily's eyes. 

_My god, the boy has Lily's eyes exactly._

That was Lily Evans' son. 

James Potter's son.

That was Harry.

Remus felt, actually physically felt, when something shattered inside him from looking at Harry, son of his best friend, the only child the four of them had and therefore communally their child, his and James' and Lily's and Peter's and accursed Sirius'. A thin, baggy-trousered boy with a snowy owl and a trunk nearly as big as he was. How could he not have known? How could he not have remembered? Harry was eleven too, and alive in the world. And those were Lily's eyes, he had no right to have Lily's eyes.

But something inside him was broken and he could feel tears bleeding out of his eyes against his will, could feel his chest constricting until his ribs would surely shatter and pierce his lungs and heart -- if he stayed here he would die. The steam of the train and the children with their trunks and the excited calls to each other across the platform would kill him, the ghosts of James and Peter on the edges of his vision would rip his heart right out of his chest, and it was more than one man could be expected to bear, to see the boy with Lily's eyes board the train. 

The boy turned again on the stairs to the train. Remus fled, through the barrier and the train station, conscious that people were staring at a grown man sobbing and hyperventilating and looking merely for some dark corner to draw himself together in, but even when he found a filthy niche in the wall, away from the light and noise, he couldn't stop. He could not stop. Two seconds and those eyes in that face had stolen all his hard-earned indifference to the world. He leaned against the wall and covered his face in his hands and tried to stop, and found he couldn't. It was too much. Too much.

***

He had no idea he'd called the Edwards-Clarkeses to tell them Ack was on the train, or that he managed to sound relatively sane while doing so, though apparently he had; he knew they didn't send anyone to look for him, because when he did finally return the household was asleep and there was a note on his door thanking him for taking Ackerly to the train. 

He had dim memories of finding himself drained and empty and cold, so cold his hands trembled and could not be stopped, and he knew they trembled because at some point he'd found a cafe outside the train station and bought himself a cheap cup of tea. It had rattled against its saucer when he tried to pick it up. The receipt in his pocket showed he'd bought food, as well, but he couldn't recall eating any of it and it was likely he'd simply left it there, wherever he'd bought it in the first place. 

He didn't know what he'd done with the afternoon, only that he'd eventually managed to find a cab and collapse in the back-seat, not caring that the driver was lost twice before finding the proper house. He nearly fumbled the security code to get in, and when he heard movement in the kitchen he froze in the shadows of the front hall until it had passed. He could not fathom moving in the presence of another person.

His room was cold; the door to Wick's bedroom had been left open, and he closed it quietly. He stood in the middle of the room for a while and simply stared at the furnishings as though they were new and alien, and in some way they were. It was such a tidy, empty room, he thought, and yet he suffered so much mess within it -- the mess of his memories, the mess of Miss Helit and Wick and Ack, the mess of responsibility for two children. To pile atop that this new mess, this grief that he was entirely unprepared for, this ten-year-old hole in his soul -- no. He would not.

It reminded him of his departure from the Academy in Alabama, though he was not so calm this time and every movement was an effort of will. This knowing-of-people clearly had to stop; he could not know people anymore, it was too difficult, too hard when they left him or died or didn't love him or when he had to leave them. 

He stuffed the books carelessly into his suitcase and the clothing on top of it and in his haversack, leaving the lesson plans strewn as they were about the room. He had no personal papers or correspondence save the letters from his father, which he had kept in the suitcase at any rate. He threw out the recommendations and the transcripts, burning them smokelessly with his wand. He left the sneakoscope for Wick and a letter for the adults, written with a forcibly calm hand, but he had very little clue what he had written, other than that Ack was safely on the train, and he was forced through sudden family emergency to withdraw from employment immediately. He thought later he might have given Susan some kind of reference, or mentioned her work with Wick, but he was never sure. He never saw Susan or Wick again. 

He breathed easier in the night air, with the haversack on his shoulder and the suitcase in one hand. He had twenty-two days until the next full moon, but he didn't anticipate a problem; he would find a place to live where he could Change, as well.

He decided perhaps the conservatives weren't so wrong after all. Werewolves clearly needed locking up away from people.


	7. Chapter 7

Remus, in his midnight flight from the Edwards-Clarkes, aimed instinctively towards Victoria Park, an area he rather liked though the surroundings were shady and low-rent. Before, this had always been a detraction; he recalled someone at the hostel, in those first few days in London, saying how he was going to get out of the squalid little place and find a nice squat around the park, and he remembered his horror at the idea of living somewhere illegally, somewhere he might be caught in at any time. But hell, he was a werewolf, wasn't he? Living in his own body meant that.

It wasn't hard to find a room to stay in for the night, especially when he offered the other squatters cash to clear out; his salary hadn't been royal, but it had been good enough when one didn't have to pay room or board, and what did he have to spend money on? He had no particular desires or hungers then, and the only ones he had now were for silence and darkness and the absence of other people. Money could buy that, especially from the disenfranchised homeless who had made the abandoned houses their own.

He could have found a hotel, but there were bellhops and attendants and maids and for the first time since he had shot Lacon Chaney he let the wolf out just enough to find a dark corner in which to lick its wounds, as filthy and squalid as could possibly be. He charmed the door shut, transfigured a mattress out of a few bits of lumber in a corner, and lay down.

On his second night in the squatter's house, a young man who shared a room with two dogs downstairs stopped him on the staircase as he went lethargically out to get food, and asked him if he had a fix; realising this was some Muggle custom he was unaware of, Remus replied no, and then the man asked if he wanted one, and flashed something Remus did recognise -- a hypodermic syringe. He shook his head and went on his way, but the next night the man seemed so desperate for money that Remus simply pressed some into his hand. The man shoved him against the wall and kissed him on the mouth and Remus didn't resist, didn't bother to. The man smelled of wild things and animals and Remus never did get his name but he did get a cigarette habit off of him, as well as a couple of dark-hallway blowjobs that might have been handshakes for all Remus paid them any mind. He had no desire to see people or speak to them, but he hadn't the energy to avoid them, and it was a release of sorts.

He did go out, to get food and to distract himself, because he found that a small empty room was just as much a prison for grief as the cheerful, people-filled house he'd left behind. Sometimes it was a solace and sometimes it was an insane asylum he had to escape, and he followed the man who gave him the cigarettes, and the other men he met. He didn't always remember where he'd gone, but he had images of crowded places, the smell of Muggle alcohol and smoke.

The windows had no panes anymore but he blocked them up with wood and sticking charms. They held against the wolf on the full moons. He had half-wanted the wolf on Halloween, and now he had it; he lived from moon to moon, and the rest of the month was spent marking time, eating if he starved and smoking if he hadn't the energy for food, following others out at night.

His cash slowly dwindled. He wrote to his father dutifully once a month, usually when he was too sick from the Change to do anything else, and he never had a reply. How could he, after all. He didn't live properly. He just existed. He had no fixed address, no income, no purpose, no desires, nothing to occupy himself with and no need for occupation. He was a name with a stomach attached, and sometimes claws.

And Remus Lupin commenced to die. Little by little, day by day.

It wasn't unusual. In the early nineties there were lots of young people -- young men in particular -- dying slowly, and some not so slowly, in the slums of London. They succumbed to poverty-starvation or addiction or most popularly a new Muggle plague that was ripping its way across the world and which those in power, because it was a disease of perverts and scum, generally ignored. Remus liked the dying men best, because they understood; their bodies were failing them, too, and all they had for their scars was the disdain of the rest of the world. They had lost as much as he had, some of them more, and now they were dying and he wished he could die too, though the wolf's survival instincts made sure he ate -- not enough -- and slept -- not peacefully -- and one day his lungs rejected the cigarette smoke forcibly and that was the end of that habit.

His clothes wore out and he didn't bother to replace them; someone who moved in across the hallway showed him how to patch them for a few pounds and his remaining, now useless, cigarettes.

There were rallies he was dragged along to though he stood dumbly and tried to avoid the thick of the crowds; there were activists in the building sometimes, who disturbed his sleep with their conversations. There were musicians who called themselves post-Punk and played loud music, thumping up through the floorboards: _Telegram Sam you're my main man_ and _Sister sister he's just a plaything_ and _Here I am Dr. John here I am do you know what to do?_

At least he didn't dream of Lacon Chaney anymore, and if he dreamed that Gabriel slept with an arm across his waist, it was only a sign that he ought to find someone with a willing mouth and the ability to ignore a scar or two.

When James and Lily and Peter died, he had not lost his reason or shut himself away or beaten the walls; he had quietly and calmly gone home for a bit, to collect himself, and then he'd gone away from England, most sensibly and most reasonably. He had never simply given up; he had worked his way from place to place and found ways to force himself into a world that wanted no part of him. Dumbledore had written to him once that he ought to grieve; well, fine. He would grieve now, because he had no choice. He couldn't will away the shattered bits inside that he really physically felt there, the shards that worked their way into his heart and stomach and sometimes would kill him if he moved. When that happened he lay on the bed in the dusty, unlit room and stayed still, as he had when he was a child and the nightmares seemed real even after waking up.

One morning he woke to find the pressure on his chest was very real.

Alastor Moody's horrifying, asymmetrical face leered down at him, and Remus yelped and skidded backwards, fleeing the heavy hand on his chest, his first physical contact in days. Light filtered in through the cracks in the window-coverings. His locking charms on the door had been neatly picked.

"Tisn't easy to find ye," Moody said, complacently, as Remus caught his breath and slowed his pounding heart. The man rose from his stoop, his good knee popping as he did so and his wooden leg clacking against the floor. "Look a right mess, you do."

"Why are you here?" Remus asked.

"Business for ye," Moody answered. "Sent by Dumbledore. World's becomin' a dangerous place."

He held out a scrap of paper, and Remus took it numbly. Sirius' face looked up at him, waxy and drawn, hair matted, eyes dark. It was eerie the way the head never moved, though the text clearly proved it was a Wizarding paper.

"Gone and done a runner, and nobody knows a thing," Moody continued, as Remus read the article. Sirius had made it past the beach this time. He'd made it off Azkaban. Sirius was free.

"Oh," Remus said hollowly. "Fine. You catch him. If he comes for me he can kill me."

"Tut! Keep yer tongue in yer head for a moment," Moody said sternly. "He ain't comin' for you."

"Good, because I'd rather not see him."

"Comin' for the boy," Moody said. "The Potter boy."

Remus glanced up from the clipping. "For Harry?" he said hoarsely.

"Aye, it's on good authority. You're wanted to protect the boy."

"Me?" Remus laughed and gestured at himself. "Do I look in a position to protect anyone, Moody? Go on, find an Auror to babysit him. I won't go near him. Do more harm than good," he added, rolling over to put his back to Moody.

"Tisn't a request," Moody answered. "Tis a command as a member of the Order. Straight from Dumbledore."

"Tell Dumbledore to go fuck himself."

"Nah, lad, tell him yerself. He's offerin' a teachin' position and some perks ye may not know of, livin' like a Muggle," Moody said. "And it's a shame to bribe a man I taught better," he added. Remus cringed at the tone in his voice. There was a time when Moody's frown or smile meant the difference between failure and success to Remus, back before.

"Teaching at Hogwarts?" he asked, when his voice was steady.

"Defence Against the Dark Arts."

"Why would he ever allow me back there? Even the Shack isn't that safe -- "

"That's the perks," Moody said triumphantly, and Remus sat up, turning reluctantly to face him. Moody regarded him, his magical false eye rolling around in its socket. "New potion out. Wolfsbane potion. Just been discovered. Not a cure, mind you, but close as makes no difference. None more o' these," he added, indicating the scars on Remus' shoulders where the shirt he wore gapped open. Remus pulled it up, a little.

"I'm hardly fit to be a teacher," he said.

"Doubt that. Doubt that very much," Moody answered. "But it's no matter to me for if you don't, I'll be forced to. If ye're inclined to change yer mind, be on the Hogwarts Express in ten days' time. Otherwise," he gestured at the room, which seemed more awful and bare to Remus even than it normally did, "stay in yer hole and may ye rot here for the coward ye are."

Remus couldn't meet his eyes, and instead plucked at the frayed edge of the blanket. Moody snorted, and left the clipping behind him as he went, storming down the stairway and shouting at loiterers in the hall to move out of his way or he'd arrest the lot of them.

It was Harry's green eyes in his memory or Sirius' blue ones staring up at him from the newspaper clipping; the rock and the hard place. If he stayed here, he would feel Sirius' eyes upon him; if he went to Dumbledore like the prodigal son, he would be forced to see Harry every day.

Hunger swept through him suddenly, hunger that had nothing to do with his empty belly, and a new thought rose dimly in his mind through the howling of the wolf that had been drowning out all other rational thought for nearly two years:

If he went to Dumbledore, he would be allowed to see Harry.

Every day.

***

So Remus Lupin went to Hogwarts.

Again.

He had just enough money left after changing it at Gringotts (the Goblins looking down their noses at the shaggy, ill-dressed, pale-faced man) to buy what he needed. A halfway-decent haircut, some second-hand robes and clothing, a few books that would help him teach, quills and parchment; an owl to Dumbledore to say he'd accepted the job, and could Dumbledore please send him a train ticket for the Hogwarts Express. He went back to the squat that evening and began to pack, piling everything into the old, much-battered, too-worthless-to-sell suitcase.

He had no money for food. He'd gone hungry before, but now the gnawing pangs when he didn't eat made him wonder how. Or why. Moody had known what to do right enough, he reckoned; swear at him a bit, offer him a job, and then disdain him when he was too frightened to take it. He felt as though he'd woken after two years of sleepwalking.

His latest neighbour-across-the-hall was a heroin cook, with a little bit of cash to her name, and he nipped across to ask if he could sell her his haversack for a few quid, told her he was moving out in three days' time. She gave him five for it, which was probably about twice what it was worth, and he bought enough food to at least keep the hunger away. An owl arrived the following day with a congratulatory letter from the Headmaster, a train ticket, and three or four large bars of chocolate. Dementors, the letter said, might harass the train.

Remus thought back to his singular encounter with them, in America years ago, and practiced his patronus that night. The slivery thestral scared the bejesus out of a junkie who happened to look in the wrong room at the wrong time.

He arrived early at the train, unable to sleep the night before, and finally dropped off huddled under his coat in an empty compartment, wondering how he would manage what he would find at Hogwarts; wondering if McGonagall and Flitwick were still teaching -- Binns was, he was sure of it -- and if Severus was still there. He would be teaching Ackerly again, and Harry, and there must be others. Hadn't little Neville Longbottom been born around the same time Harry was?

When the high, not-quite-adult voices woke him a while later, he listened and learned. He protected them as well, when he had to; that was what he was really being paid to do, wasn't it?

The first time he saw Harry's eyes on the train, they were clouded with fear and confusion and he was far too distracted by the necessity of protecting the children to wonder if Harry would shatter him again. Harry was a boy who needed to eat that chocolate, a boy who needed his protection. Harry had no idea who he was or that he knew who had given Harry such a handsome young face and such brilliant green eyes.

No; he would survive. Once was enough, and he still felt the odd pull on his insides at times. He had already broken, and had not reassembled himself well enough to be broken again.

He would just have to get on with things, as normal people did. Spar with Severus on the occasions they had to meet, neither of them willing to bring up the evening in Australia when they had been almost-friends -- now he was the usurper of a position Severus wanted, and at Hogwarts he was a living symbol of the torments the other man had suffered at the hands of James and Sirius. Severus brewed Wolfsbane potion against his will, and Remus drank it nearly against his own, because it made the wolf docile, and the wolf was not meant to be controlled. It had been his only release, and though it relieved him to awaken without scratchmarks and bruises, there was an itch, somewhere around the base of his spine, that spoke of wilder things he could no longer express even in the beast's howl.

But he tolerated that too, and he taught, falling easily into the rhythm of a lecturer's speech, re-learning the trick of marking a paper tactfully when it was terrible and not-too-enthusiastically when it was excellent. He saw Ack again, a third-year Ravenclaw with an affinity for Magical History, and was proud of the boy in his own way, as proud as Ack was to be old-friends with the popular Defence instructor. There was Frank and Alice's shy young son, and the Patil twins, and some older Gryffindor boys whose siblings and parents he had known when they were young. He was kept busy, which was all for the best.

Sometimes at the end of the day the memories of the Academy were a little too overwhelming, and the desire for someone like Gabriel to comfort him a little too strong, but he could always put his pale face and sunken eyes down to his illness, convenient and vague.

He did have Harry to look after, especially in the spring, during the patronus lessons. Harry was not as inherently masterful as James or as quietly brilliant as Lily; he had talent, there was no doubt of that, but he was uncertain of himself, and he worked for what he got. He was more sensitive than his father -- kinder, though no less quick to anger. Remus studied him as he might have studied a red-cap or a boggart, to see what made him who he was, and he began to understand that perhaps he had been wrong. Perhaps the years he had spent thinking he could give Harry nothing he didn't already receive from the Dursleys was the most grievous error of his life. The boy was starved for love, and now it was too late to give it to him. Remus was his teacher, after all.

But you know all this, don't you?

You were there too.

The year passed by too quickly, and then there was Sirius and the Shack, and Peter and Severus and a mess he himself made when he forgot the potion, one more mistake in a series of mistakes that once more cost him his job. There was a year of searching-for-work, of living-on-savings, of reading about Harry and his friends in the papers because he couldn't be there himself, and reading more about them in rare letters from Sirius. He worried, in the vague way a distant relative might, about Harry, but it was not his place to help him, it was Sirius', and anyway he couldn't have done anything if it was his place.

The next summer there was the horrible death of Cedric Diggory, and suddenly there was Sirius.

He arrived in late June after a circuit that must have covered most of Britain; he'd even gone to the Lupin farm, far off from the flat Remus was barely making payments on in Newcastle. He'd lurked at the farm for five or six days, he said, before he found out by eavesdropping where Remus was. All that came later, though; the afternoon Sirius arrived was a sunny late-summer day and Remus had come back from a part-time tutoring job, to find a large black dog slumped on his doorstep, fur matted, the pads of his paws cracked and dry, tongue lolling out. He stopped and leaned against the railing up to the building, regarding the creature with a mixture of amusement and surprise.

"You've never looked better," he said, and the dog scrambled to its feet, slowly and tremblingly. Remus saw at once it was not a time for jokes; instead he unlocked the door and led Padfoot inside. He used to say Padfoot was part Newf and part Grizzly Bear, but aside from the size of him, he was whip-thin and weak, and Remus had to carry him up the flight of stairs to his flat.

Inside, Sirius changed and was suddenly a weight on one shoulder instead of across both; Remus helped him to a chair in the tiny kitchen and poured him water, which Sirius accepted with hands that bled when he flexed his fingers. The next half hour was spent not in greetings but in medical attention, first hands and feet and then a hot bath. Remus didn't dare leave him for fear he'd fall asleep and slide under, so instead he sat on the edge of the tub and combed through the tangled hair, using scissors when he had to. The result wasn't haute couture, but it was clean and didn't look too terrible.

He helped Sirius back up out of the water, remembering other years, almost other lives, in which Sirius and James would carry him to a bed after a Change and bind up his injuries while he slept. He had never thought to be the one Sirius leaned on; Sirius didn't lean, for starters, and if he had it would have been on James --

"A strange reversal, isn't it?" Sirius rasped, as if he had read his mind.

"Let's get you something to eat," Remus answered, mentally cataloguing the sad assortment of food in his larder. Enough for a vegetable soup, he decided, and left Sirius to dress, shaky but a little more steady now, in patched clothing that was ill-fitting but better than rags, and at least clean and tidy. The shirt was too long, but narrow across the shoulders, and Sirius left it unbuttoned at the throat as he wandered back in and sniffed appreciatively.

"Onions?" he asked, with the fervor of a man who has been fantasising about vegetable soup for years.

"Onions and garlic, some celery, potatoes, carrots...I'm afraid it's not much," Remus replied. "I'll be paid tomorrow, though, and can buy some meat then."

"Quite a pair of ragged beggars we are," Sirius murmured.

"We do what we must," Remus answered simply, and was met with silence. He turned from the stove to see Sirius watching him. "Dumbledore sent an owl that there was news coming, but I didn't think you'd be the one to bring it."

"If there's no room I needn't stay long," Sirius said, and a hint of the old arrogant Black pride cut his tone.

"There's room," Remus answered. "You need a safe place to stay."

Sirius nodded, and studied the white kitchen table, fingers dancing across it aimlessly. "I have some money," he said softly, and rose, leaving the room. He returned with the remains of the trousers he'd been wearing before, and ripped the pocket right out, tossing it on the table. Remus leaned over and was surprised to see a thick roll of Muggle fifty-pound notes and a handful of pound coins and pence. Sirius saw his surprise, and shrugged.

"I had other bank accounts," he said simply. "I didn't learn absolutely nothing from my family."

"That would buy steak, if you want it," Remus said. "There's a shop two doors down -- "

"Soup," Sirius said, inhaling again. "Tonight, soup."

Remus nodded, and returned to the pan, adding water and chicken-stock-powder and tapping it with his wand to speed the cooking process. "This needs to simmer," he said. "Shall I buy bread? I have a little margarine."

"No," Sirius answered. "Soup is enough."

Remus saw the tiredness and uncertainty in his face then, and realised that Sirius was not asking for soup because he wanted soup; he didn't want Remus to go down to buy meat, because he didn't want to be left alone.

"Soup it is," he said, with a cheer he didn't feel. He located a half-full box of cheap crackers and poured some into a bowl while he quickly heated water for tea, filling two cups and using (extravagance!) a tea-bag each. He set them down on the table, pulling out the other, less sturdy chair as Sirius picked up a cracker and broke it into pieces before eating each shard individually.

"I have some news from the Order, nothing that can't wait a bit," Sirius began quietly. "I assume Dumbledore's been in contact with you about Voldemort's rise."

"More or less. Owl post isn't very safe," Remus answered. "Is that where you've been? Rallying the Order?"

Sirius nodded wearily and blew on his tea to cool it. "You're the last stop. Dumbledore thought I should stay with you."

"Dumbledore was right. How's Harry?"

"Holding up, as far as I know. He's a good lad," Sirius added, summoning the energy for a smile. "Reminds me of James."

Remus wondered how, since Harry was so inherently his own person, but then Sirius had known James better than he had. "He's a good student," he added haplessly, and they sat in silence for a while, Sirius breaking crackers and eating them slowly, Remus wondering if he ought to say anything. It was a relief when they at least had hunger as an excuse to be silent; between the pair of them they finished every last lump of potato, and Sirius seemed better for the food.

"You should sleep," Remus suggested, as Sirius ran the spoon idly around the bottom of the bowl. "You look done-in, Pads."

Sirius looked up sharply at the old name that fell off Remus' tongue before it meant to. Remus nearly flinched.

"I suppose I do," Sirius replied finally, looking away. Remus stood and led him to the bedroom and the old but comfortable twin bed that had come with the flat. Sirius, too tired to protest the offer of a bed, even if it was the only bed, slipped off the shirt and trousers, and Remus closed the door on a sleepy murmur of gratitude.

Later, he suspected, if there was to be shouting it would come; there was too much left unsaid between them, and Sirius was a shouter by nature. He wondered how he seemed to Sirius, all patched clothing and cheap soup, scars on his face that the Shack's ill light had hidden, living like a Muggle in a shoddy flat.

He cancelled his work for the rest of the week and stayed in the flat more or less, though he went out to spend some of Sirius' money on better food than his salary could provide. Sirius told him what the rest of the Order was up to, and they began plans for recruitment of a few new members, slowly and through safe channels; otherwise they were often silent. Sirius, who had been deprived of books for even longer than he'd been deprived of his freedom devoured the books Remus had, voraciously, and for once Remus was content to sit and read as well, keeping quiet company.

The third day after his arrival, in newly-purchased clothes that fit him better, Sirius looked up from the book he was reading and asked who Gabriel was.

Remus stared in surprise for a moment, before realising that the book Sirius had was inscribed by Gabriel, a gift from years ago.

"He was a friend," he said.

"He calls you Mon Anglais."

"He was French -- we knew each other in America. It's a big country; Europeans have to keep close ranks with each other."

Sirius nodded. "Did he die?"

"I don't know -- why?"

"You keep saying was."

Remus shrugged -- there didn't seem to be anything else to say. It occurred to him that Sirius might be jealous of the friends he'd had in the decade-plus since Voldemort's fall, of the places he'd been and the things he'd done, but they had said they forgave each other, and with Sirius, to say was to do. It was that simple.

Or perhaps Sirius was afraid of these people -- the Aurors in the photographs on Remus' walls, the names in his books. Perhaps Sirius was afraid these people held more claim on him now. Remus was not so stupid as to think he and Harry weren't all Sirius had left in the world. Remus understood what it would be to lose that.

"Sirius," he said, and then, "Padfoot."

Sirius looked up.

"It's over now," Remus said. "Azkaban. All of that. You and I, it's down to us. You won't ever want for someone."

"I didn't -- "

"You didn't have to say it." Remus closed his book. The book Sirius held was shaking in his hands. "For as long as it's needed -- the rest of our lives if you need it. I'm here. I'm not going to go away or abandon you. Not again."

Sirius looked like a starving man who saw a feast -- which was not entirely inaccurate.

"All right then, Moony," he said, trying to sound easy, though his voice was strained.

"All right then," Remus agreed. "And you can stay here as long as you like."

Sirius looked down. "Not for long."

"Sirius -- "

"No, I had an owl from Dumbledore this morning. I offered him the old town-house in London as a headquarters for the Order. It's mine now. You remember it?"

Remus cast his mind back. He remembered mention of it, true, but he'd never been inside -- even if Sirius' parents hadn't disapproved of his half-blood friend, there had been wards on the house against dark creatures, including werewolves, and Remus couldn't risk detection.

"I remember James talking about it," he ventured.

"Old Moody's been working on it. Adding some new charms and taking off some others." Sirius shrugged. "I didn't really want to say anything, but you...Dumbledore says he needs me there, and if you want to, there'll be no rent, and -- "

" -- you don't want to live there alone," Remus finished.

"You've learned how to be blunt," Sirius muttered.

"When do we go?"

Sirius shrugged. "Dumbledore says as soon as possible."

"I'll start packing," Remus said, and set his book down. As he passed, Sirius touched his wrist.

"Did you mean that?" he asked plaintively.

"Yes," Remus answered, unflinching.

"Why?"

"Because I remember when I was you," Remus said.

***

The year that followed their move to the house on Grimmauld Place wasn't easy, by any stretch of the imagination; Order meetings were tense, and Remus remembered the last time the Order had assembled, when the count of heads at each one was the most efficient way of seeing who had died. They'd lost so many, and already there was the danger of losing others. Arthur in the hospital, his oldest son taking dangerous missions to prove himself, the Aurors who were always in harm's way -- and the children. Some were mischievous, risking the safety of the organisation, while others were secretive and angry. Remus had been a teacher and an Auror and a homeless drifter and he understood the overflow of emotions that filled the house, but he was helpless in the face of them, and Sirius was a part of the storm.

So he focused on Sirius, because Sirius was always there and Sirius was someone he could at least try to fix. Starved for those things that make up a normal life, Sirius took anything he could gladly; a hot meal, a touch on the shoulder, a midnight conversation when he couldn't sleep. And slowly Remus re-learned Sirius and his place in Sirius' life, because it couldn't be what it used to be at school. He wasn't the prefect who looked the other way, the third best friend, the comrade in rulebreaking anymore. He knew it frightened Sirius, but what was he to do? He couldn't change who he had become, or he would have done so for reasons that really had nothing to do with Sirius Black in the first place.

Instead he comforted in other ways. He touched Sirius constantly, reassuringly; he spoke a lot, when they were together, filling the silence so Sirius didn't go off into some place in his head that was dangerous for Sirius and impossible for anyone else to follow. He anchored him, as much as he could, in the insanity that was Grimmauld Place. It was good to be needed.

When Sirius died he missed that almost more than Sirius himself, and couldn't find it in him to be horrified. Sirius had been brave and reckless and wonderful when they were boys, and everything Remus wanted to be but knew he never would. When they were men, Sirius was frightened, more than he would ever show, and trying desperately to be a man at all, after twelve years of standing still in Azkaban prison. There was no place for Sirius in the world, and they both knew it, and Remus was relieved for Sirius that the time of trying was over.

But he did miss his friend, and grieve him, and he knew that the rest of the Order paid him respectful mind because of it. If he was short with them or his occasional mission went badly, they put it down to Sirius, and perhaps they were right to do so. Out of anyone that year, even Molly Weasley, Harry listened only to Remus, which was strange because he ought to hate him; Remus could have understood hate, but the quiet obedience in the otherwise near-uncontrollable boy was baffling.

Then he remembered the Academy, and the young boys there who had been sent away by their parents because they were hopeless cases -- because the Academy had taken only the very best and the very worst. Death before mediocrity. The children who came angry and disobedient and rebellious to the Academy had been his favourites because if only you gave them reason to love you, they did so; they had nothing to lose. They wanted order in their lives. Harry wanted order in his life. Harry was afraid.

Remus did what he could. It was what he had always done.

The summer after Sirius' death was not a good time for the Order. Voldemort's followers had become more aggressive, despite their trouncing in the Department of Mysteries, and Dumbledore was still reluctant to put anyone on any kind of offensive, so they were stuck reacting instead of acting, cleaning up messes instead of preventing them from happening. Remus understood Dumbledore was waiting for something, but he didn't know what, and in the meantime people were getting hurt. Nearly half the Order was out with minor injuries after a disastrous scrap in Knockturn Alley, and it was a miracle nobody had been killed; word was coming in through Dung Fletcher and some of Kingsley's less savoury contacts that the ranks of the Death Eaters were swelling. The familiar, overwhelmed feeling from the last time they'd fought this war was welling up, and a pall hung over the meetings. If Dumbledore wasn't careful, it was going to turn to resentment and rebellion soon.

They needed time. They needed people and information. They had some money from Sirius, but most of it was in trust for Harry when he turned eighteen. In the meantime, Harry could only offer his inheritance from his parents, which no-one was about to ask for. Remus worked for the Order and took their support because he couldn't find a steady job at any rate -- a real job, people sometimes said by mistake. There was no malice in it, but it stung all the same because he knew it was true.

He was tired, and still sometimes he was broken in places he couldn't reach into to fix, and there was no-one to be for him what he had been for Sirius. He took comfort in Harry, oddly, and in the minutiae of preparing Harry for his sixth year. He had a responsibility. He couldn't run away any longer.

Though some days he was sorely tempted.

There was a mission that August, to recover a valuable magic artifact recently uncovered in a Muggle antique shop; he had to fight tooth and nail to get it, and on the way back his steps were dogged by Death Eaters almost ceaselessly. He'd had to take refuge in a ditch at one point, and the handle had finally snapped off his beloved suitcase, leaving him with, essentially, a large box carried with the same twine that held it together. By the time he reached Grimmauld Place he was filthy, cold and wet, hungry and angry and exhausted, his last good pair of robes in tatters and the trousers underneath going at the knees. He hadn't dared magic outside of the house; it would attract attention.

"Remus," Arthur said, coming to the doorway as he stepped in out of the muggy August night and set the case down, shedding his robes and with them the worst of the mud. "We were wondering -- "

"It's safe," he said tiredly, waving a hand at the box, squinting in the dim light and wanting only to go to his bedroom and wash, and lie down on clean sheets for a while. "Put it in the kitchen. Moody will know what to do with it. You'll probably have to do some paperwork about it, I took it off a Muggle, but they didn't really have a clue, so I think that's all right...."

"No, that wasn't it -- are you all right?" he asked.

"I'm not hurt. Just filthy."

"There are people -- "

"They'll have to wait, Arthur. Surely there's food we can distract them with," he said, already heading for the stairs up to his room.

"But Remus -- "

"Please, handle it for twenty minutes?" he asked. "Give me time to wash the mud off my face?"

Arthur heard the hard tone in his voice, and to his relief, the other man nodded.

"When you're ready, in the kitchen..."

Remus waved his hand in a gesture of agreement, and went up the stairs as fast as his tired legs would take him, beginning to shed his shirt almost before he was inside his rooms and leaving a trail of dirty clothing on his way to the bath. He turned on the water and cupped it in his hands, pouring it over his head and shoulders. He let the filthy water swirl down the drain before plugging it and filling the tub, dropping into it with a sigh of relief. The hot water soothed the ache in his muscles, and the steam cleared his head a little; he started feeling bad about snapping at Arthur before long. The people in the kitchen were probably important, were probably recruits or refugees who needed to talk to someone in charge, and right now, with Dumbledore out of the country (hopefully finding whatever he'd been waiting for), that was Remus.

He groaned and pushed himself out of the fast-cooling water, drying himself with a quick spell instead of a towel, and locating clean clothing. They would have to take him barefoot; his shoes were crusted with mud and he didn't appear to have any respectable socks.

He passed his desk as he was buttoning his collar, and paused.

Slowly, he turned.

There was an object on the desk, a cylinder wrapped in scarlet paper, without a tag or an explanation. If he hadn't thought the house was safe....but no-one could have left this here without access to his room, which was warded against those with ill-intentions.

He picked it up and peeled off the red paper slowly; underneath was a green cardboard cylinder of the sort wine bottles were packed in. He prised the lid off and grasped the black-wrapped neck of a bottle, easing it out slowly in case it was a trigger on some kind of peculiar bomb. It never hurt to be cautious.

The bottle glowed brilliant red-amber, catching the candlelight from the lit brackets in his bedroom walls and a hint of the silver moonlight outside.

 

 

**Established 1874**

  
**The Grand Old Drink of the South**   
**Originated on the Banks of the Mississippi**   
**in New Orleans Louisiana U.S.A.**

**by Southern Comfort Company.**

He studied it for a minute, and then he became aware of the background noise he'd been hearing for a few minutes without noticing it; a song half-remembered, but the sort that, once learned -- like the Hogwarts school anthem -- is never forgotten.

_...and we'll whip any Yankee magic_   
_You just name the place and time;_   
_If we're called on we can stand and_   
_We will die or we'll live free...._

He ran out of the bedroom and onto the landing, almost falling in his haste to get down the stairs. Another turn and he was in the kitchen stairwell, and in a spare second he was skidding to a stop in the kitchen, the neck of the bottle still clenched in his hand.

_If we're called on we can stand and_   
_We will die or we'll live free_   
_For there are no fiercer Wizards_   
_Than Montgomery Academy._

The sudden noise washed over him, the voices of men, grown men, singing in various degrees of harmony and several different keys. The note died faster than it might have, when he arrived; all eyes turned to him, and there were a lot of eyes.

Easily thirty men filled the kitchen sub-level, and that wasn't including Arthur, Kingsley, or the children -- Ginny and Ron, Harry and Hermione. Most of the men were in their twenties, it looked like; a lot of them wore short, bristling military haircuts, and some wore uniforms as well. A few wore red shirts and grey flannel jackets, and to a man they had, on their left index fingers, the insignia ring of a graduate of the Montgomery Academy for Young Wizards.

A brown-haired man had been conducting them, and when Remus paused just past the bottom step, he turned.

"Bonjour, Loupahn," Gabriel Lareaux said quietly.

Remus became suddenly aware that he was damp and disheveled and barefoot, his hair slick against his head from the bath, but he didn't care; the little shattered fragments inside of him were realigning themselves in his soul and it hurt, it was so good. A small smile appeared on Gabriel's lips, and he gestured, mild and graceful -- a fencer's gesture. It took in at once the men surrounding him and Remus himself. "I've brought you an army," he said.

"Gabriel," Remus said stupidly.

"Oui, mon Anglais." Gabriel gestured again, and one of the men in American military uniform came forward. "You remember Jack Hartnett, no doubt. Marine Captain Hartnett, now."

Jack Hartnett held out his hand, hesitantly. Remus examined his face; yes, he could see hints of a skinny, frightened seventeen-year-old there. Jack had been the reason he was thrown out of the Academy; Jack had told Will Connors what he was, and Will had organised an insurrection against him. And Connors, he recalled, had not been man enough to hold the gun; that was --

"Michael Owens said if I ever saw you again I was to say sorry for him," Jack said. "He died a few years ago. Gulf war."

Remus took Jack's hand, bewilderedly.

"I'm sorry," he said, unsure what else to say.

"So was he," Jack answered.

"News about You-Know-Who has been filtering into America," Arthur said, somewhere in the background. "Apparently they're keeping it quiet, but Mr. Lareaux tells me he heard about it and...er...."

"Rallied the troops," Gabriel finished smoothly, and he smiled again. There were new lines in his face, but it was Gabriel, here, in the kitchen of the Black house, Gabriel's eyes, Gabriel's hands --

"Troops?" Remus asked. He realised he knew the rest of the men in the kitchen; they had been his students, once upon a time, when they were Harry's age. Now they were grown men....

"To fight the good fight," Gabriel supplied. "Thirty-two willing bodies, plus a small corps of military wizards under the command of Captain Hartnett and another under the command of Second Lieutenant Ceros."

"Fifty-one men and nine women total," Jack supplied. "Not all here, of course; we've bivouac'd the enlisted soldiers elsewhere. We have five specialists in covert operations, three rifle sharpshooters, four Healers, and various other civilian trades. At your service, Mr. Lupin."

Remus stared at him.

"What am I supposed to do with an army?" he blurted.

"Command it," Gabriel said with a smile.

***

By the time most of the newcomers had found rooms in Grimmauld Place or gone to stay with the soldiers, Remus had almost adjusted to the idea of Gabriel Lareaux standing before him again, not to mention the concept of an Order suddenly swollen to the size of a small army.

Gabriel was not, in fact, standing before him; he was sitting across from him at the kitchen table, drinking tea spiked with the bottle of Southern Comfort while Arthur excitedly discussed Muggle armaments with Hartnett and Ceros nearby.

"I don't understand," Remus said. "You just...?"

"Owled," Lareaux said. "And some of the men, you know, have young siblings who are my students. Word traveled; men wrote to me saying they had heard their old Master was wanted by les mangeurs de mort, the Death Eaters, because he was a soldier in the Army of the Phoenix."

"It's not an army," Remus murmured. "It's just us."

"It is an army now. There is a great fear growing in America, that if once this evil takes root here again, they will be next." Gabriel hummed a few bars of the Academy anthem -- _If we're asked we can provide_ \-- before continuing. "These men feel you are owed, and many of them..." he waved a hand. "They are young still. This is a...a last adventure. The soldiers have wanted to come at any rate, they feel it is their duty."

"Merlin," Remus murmured, rubbing his forehead.

"Non. Lareaux," Gabriel grinned. "It is good to see you, Mon Anglais. Though you look very weary. And these, these are new, eh?" he added, fingers following, in the air, the scar-lines that crossed Remus' face from hairline to jaw. "Very dashing."

"A stupid accident," Remus muttered. His pulse had quickened when the fingers nearly grazed his cheek, and at once he hated himself for a foolish emotional reaction to a man he hadn't seen in ten years while at the same time wishing Gabriel would please just touch his skin.

"I looked for you," Gabriel said softly.

"I was hiding."

"Yes, I know."

"You sent my suitcase to my father."

"After a time, one stops looking," Gabriel answered. "One understands that perhaps to be found is worse than to hide. But I thought after all this time...we could meet on equal terms; you were not hiding any longer, and I had things to bring to you."

"We can use the manpower," Remus said, swallowing to avoid sounding hoarse. "It might be what tips the balance."

"Were there others?"

Remus looked up then. He knew he was exhausted, but he couldn't read Gabriel as he had done, once, and he didn't understand. "Others?"

"I would have spent the rest of my life with you," Gabriel said calmly. "I would have followed you anywhere you went, I would have gladly died for you. There is no blame, Loupahn, I understand; nothing to forgive. But confessions, yes."

"Gabriel -- "

"There was one other I loved. Not what we had. He was a fool but he was a fool who asked me no questions, an easy fool. And yet when I saw him he had your eyes, always your eyes. He was my other. Were there others?"

Remus studied the grain of the table. Had there been?

"There were women," he said quietly. "Three or four. I thought I loved one of them. There were men too, for a short while, but I never learned their names."

"That sort."

"That sort," Remus agreed. Gabriel was silent.

"You are tired," he said finally. "And I have kept you long enough with reminiscence. Is there room for me? A bed for me here?"

"I don't know," Remus said. "If the others haven't taken them all."

"I will ask M'seur Weasley."

Gabriel stood, but Remus grabbed his wrist before he could move, and the green eyes looked down at him curiously.

"This fool," Remus said urgently. "Did you bring him with you?"

Gabriel laughed.

"He left a long time ago," he said. "He could not compete with your ghost, you see."

"Ten years, Gabriel."

"Oui."

"Ten years."

"It was not my decision," Gabriel said gently, and he freed his hand from Remus' grip, gently. This time, his fingertips touched the skin as they traced the scars. "This woman you thought you loved?"

Remus merely shook his head. Gabriel smiled.

"We will sleep now," he said. "Tomorrow we must talk. You have stories to tell me. I have to meet you all over again, you see, so that I know the man I'm in love with."

***

They didn't have time to talk, however, at least not the following day; Dumbledore returned from his journey and there were plans to make, arrangements that had to be readjusted to include sixty new people. With reinforcements such as these, even Dumbledore was willing to begin taking action, and soon enough Grimmauld Place began to resemble a military headquarters. The ones who weren't soldiers looked to Remus and Gabriel for orders, even after meeting Dumbledore.

They had precious little time to tell stories, but still Remus found himself re-learning Gabriel as he had Sirius, though the two were hardly comparable otherwise. In the essential things, Gabriel hadn't altered much; Remus suspected that he himself was a much more difficult man to adjust to, and yet Gabriel rarely left his side. He could almost believe he was worth the quiet, subtle devotion of the other man.

The tide didn't turn easily, but by Christmas that year the strangling fear had gone, and they all breathed a little more freely. Some of those who had come with Gabriel went home, to do what good they could in keeping the Death Eaters out of the country; others had gone to the continent to work with Fleur and Bill, who were operating out of eastern France. Gabriel showed no inclination to return to his home; he seemed content as long as Remus was nearby, though he never said as much. They were good friends, comrades in arms; that was all, Remus told himself.

It was shortly after the children had arrived for the holiday, and most of the Order were celebrating their return with a large dinner while Remus worked to assemble some new information Moody had unearthed in Wales, when he felt a light touch between his shoulders, a habit Gabriel had re-developed in the past few weeks.

"No more tonight, mon Anglais," Gabriel said, using the name he hadn't spoken since his first night in Grimmauld Place. "We should be celebrating."

"I'd rather not," Remus answered. "Too many people."

"It makes you nervous."

"I suppose so."

"Here, then," Gabriel said with a smile, and put a cup of fresh tea on the table for him. "You and I. You keep promising me, you know, that you will tell me where you went after you left the Academy."

"It's not very interesting," Remus answered.

"It is to me."

"Why?"

"It is part of you."

Remus looked down, and the touch became a palm pressed flat against his back, fingers curled slightly. Gabriel's other hand tipped his head a little, so that their eyes met.

"Tell me your life," he said. "I wish to hear it."

"I can't," Remus answered, brokenly.

"You can," Gabriel said, and kissed him.

It was sweet, like the alcohol the first time they'd ever kissed, the peach liqueur that had flavored his mouth then, but Gabriel hadn't been drinking; that was just his memory...

Gabriel's hand slid up his back, fingers twining in his hair now, as Remus turned to accept the kiss more fully, as if the ten years between parting and reunion had never even happened. This was home; he had been right all along. Home was Gabriel's hands on his body and Gabriel's mouth on his, home was his arm sliding around Gabriel's waist to pin them together against the broad writing desk.

"Tell me," Gabriel said, breaking the kiss for a moment, and Remus felt a hand at his throat, undoing the buttons of his shirt. He fumbled with the scarlet shirt Gabriel wore, kissing him again, now the corner of his mouth and his jaw, now the sensitive line of his throat -- and there was the half-gasp he remembered, faded with time and so, so immediate.

Gabriel's hands were under his shirt, cool on his skin, and this too he remembered, how he never differentiated the scars from the skin, though there were dozens more now. Gabriel had his own scars, and understood them thoroughly; he shrugged out of his shirt and guided Remus' hands up his arms, over his shoulders to the places on either side of his spine where -- though he knew they were burns and nothing more -- it felt as though perhaps wings had once been cut away.

"Angel," Remus mumbled against his shoulder, and Gabriel laughed.

"Conqueror," he replied, allowing Remus to push him backwards onto the bed. The world narrowed to skin and moans and sharp thrusts, things he had learned under Gabriel's hands and gone out into the world and forgotten, and now was finding again -- the way their hips fit together, the tease of Gabriel's tongue across his collarbone, the specific rhythm of their bodies that seemed to match their very heartbeats. He remembered the way it felt when Gabriel was close, the small noise he made in the back of his throat that always made Remus lightheaded with the idea that he could do this, could make Gabriel arch and pull him close and hold him there while they pressed against each other and came and tried like hell to keep breathing.

Remus, face pressed to the safety of Gabriel's neck, relaxed now and much safer than he had been in a decade of hiding, drew a deep breath when rational thought returned.

"After I left the Academy, I began walking," he said, softly, and felt Gabriel's hands holding him, knew that Gabriel was listening. "In the summer of 1986 I reached New York City, and there was an airplane leaving for Australia..."

***

The presents have been opened and the Christmas goose eaten, and the pudding and stuffing and the candy in the crackers, too; all through the dinner feast, Gabriel has smiled just as much as anyone, but his green eyes have said that he is only smiling for Remus Lupin, and Remus likes it very much.

While the other adults sit and drink and discuss the day, which has been an excellent day, a really lovely Christmas, Remus has disappeared upstairs and Gabriel shortly after. The night before, one of many nights of tangled sheets around bodies that move together, mouths that lick and kiss and hands that touch and clutch and demand now, now, now -- the night before, lying together, talking of a thousand unimportant things and one very important thing, Remus almost finished his story, which is why they disappear; Gabriel wants to know how it ends.

Remus has a head of dark brown hair cradled on his chest, dark brown hair with not even a hint of grey in it yet; the lines in his own face are relaxed, and he doesn't care that he has aged less gracefully, nor that he has new scars, not anymore. Gabriel has learned each new one as he learned the old ones, with his mouth and teeth and fingertips. And Remus does not care, because Gabriel's dark brown hair is soft under his fingers and Gabriel breathes evenly against his chest as Remus speaks.

"So I came home," he says, "covered in mud and tired, wet and cold, and Arthur tried to stop me in the doorway."

"You were too tired," Gabriel supplies. Remus smiles.

"I went upstairs and washed, and when I came out there was a bottle of alcohol on my desk, and that's when I heard men singing. It was an old song I knew, but I didn't know why anyone would be singing it, so I ran downstairs and into the kitchen, and there was my old fencing instructor -- "

"Is that what they call it in England?" Gabriel asks, kissing the nearest available patch of skin, just below his neck.

"...with a handful of former students and some soldiers, for the Order to use in the fight," Remus finishes, ignoring him except for a gentle, amused tug on his hair.

"A good story," Gabriel yawns a little. "How does it end?"

"I'm not telling you."

"Why not?" Gabriel demands, sounding a little alarmed. He lifts his head to look down at Remus, curious.

"Because you'll be here for the rest of it," Remus answers. The silence is thick and a little worry creeps in as he asks, "Won't you?"

"Oui," Gabriel breathes, when he understands, and the fear ebbs again.

"Then you don't need to know the rest," Remus says. It feels proper this way; right that Gabriel should be the only one who knows everything, that his secrets are all contained in someone who has spent ten years waiting for him to return. Gabriel owns those years now, as much as Remus ever did, and it eases the dull ache of so many things -- Lacon Chaney and Alice Derwent, the Green Man's dance and the Wolfsbane Potion, the squat in Victoria Park and the ghosts of old friends.

"That was my story," Remus says, and yawns, and closes his eyes, because tomorrow the story begins again.

But for now he is home.


End file.
